Good morning all. I got a mid 80s clark Michigan 55c. I bought the machine from a local, honest guy. Engine was removed because bad torque converter. The stator, shells, I mean everything was toast. Long story short, I found all torque converter parts and put it back together. I cleaned out the metal screen on transmission and flushed it out a few times with mineral spirits. I got the engine back in and starting to finish it up. What is the best way to flush out that tranny and cooler? I don't want any issues when I fire this back up and have to do it all over again. Any help would be appreciated.
In the clark manuals when you nade a tc that bad it recomends complete diasassembly of the transmission and to clean out the clutch packs. I have a 55b and a guy could pull the front section apart in machine. I am not sure about a 55c but really maybe a guy could make a pump of some kind and hook it up Just like the actual transmission pump and run fluid through everything like it would if it were running. Your cooler will likely have a lot of trapped metal which will in turn end up in your transmission. You're going to want to take everything apart and clean them out one at a time would be my gut. Otherwise you will have a good amount of metal left over.
Like Ryan says the only safe way would be to strip the transmission. Not sure on the little 55C's but on the bigger ones like the old 275 and 475 I worked on you could remove just about everything with case still in the frame. Of course it all depends on what kind of failure it was in the converter. If something just snapped and it quit moving and was shut down fast might not be too much contamination. But if this thing ran for several minute or even weeks while it was slowly chewing things up and the oil comes out in chunks and looks like course metal flake paint then you better toss the cooler and start removing everything that the oil goes through. Then total disassembly and clean. That includes pipes and hoses. May even suggest replacing hoses as they can have stuff caught in the ends that might not be easy to clean out.