Warner Electric SF Series Bell Housing Clutch for Oil Well Pump Jacks

An oil drilling company wanted to replace the mechanical (cam over center) clutches on a large number of its pump jacks operating in various oil fields with a new clutch solution. The existing manually operated PTOs required a worker to visit each individual pump jack in order to engage and disengage the drive motor using a lever-actuated cam. This was a very time-consuming, costly and, often, dangerous process since many of the pump jacks were located in harsh, remote areas.

After careful analysis of the application performance and footprint requirements, Warner Electric engineers developed a modified SF Series clutch. The clutch was packaged with a custom tapered hub to fit within the customer’s existing SAE bell housing, while also utilizing the customer’s existing drive ring and shaft. The drop-in replacement clutch is easy to install with two lead wires connected to a single plug. The electrically powered clutch solution requires no hydraulic pumps and hoses and no air compressors to operate. This was a significant factor due to the isolated locations of the pump jacks.

The modified SF Series bell housing electric clutches allow the customer to easily monitor all of their pump jacks and remotely engage and disengage the drive motors as needed from the comfort and safety of a remote location. This saves the company considerable cost and time.