Flywheel info

Undoing or when pulling the flywheel bolt

A cunning ploy to lock the flywheel while undoing the crank bolt or using a flywheel puller.

Put the open end of a 1/2" spanner on one of the clutch bolts and align it so the ring end of the spanner can be bolted to the clutch housing using a flywheel cover bolt.

Removal tricks

The trick I use on pullers is to tighten-bash-tighten-bash-tighten......

Giving it a wallop with a hammer from various angles and then re-tightening the 'slack' that the bashing created has never failed to remove a flywheel for me.

I did my clutch a while back and gave it a heave on the puller, whacked the puller sideways and POP! off it came.

It's best to hit the puller lobes towards the flywheel, as the leverage across the centre bolt jerks off (oo-er!) the far lobe.

Starter ring gear sizes

"If changing a verto clutch to a pre-verto do I have to change to the starter motor too?"

Only if you are currently using a pre-engaged starter. The pre-engaged ring gear is very slightly larger, so using a pre-verto clutch will cause the ring gear to 'semi-mesh'. This is something to be aware of when pick 'n mixing verto flywheels too.If using the old inertial starter you can use that with the pre-verto clutch no problem.

Lapping onto crank

It may get the flywheel off easier the next time. However, the next time can happen very soon after because the flywheel would probably have chewed onto the primary gear.

Once you've lapped the flywheel and crankshaft mating surfaces together, the flywheel sits too far onto the crank and may come into contact with the primary gear retaining rings and the primary gear itself. About fifty miles after rebuilding my engine with the flywheel "lapped in", the entire engine seized with the primary gear locked solid on the crankshaft. It may have been lapped in too much. The flywheel was basically chewing its way onto the primary gear and distributing the filings throughout the engine. Damage was quite severe as the primary gear retaining rings had totally disintegrated and the primary gear bushes, bearings and pistons had to be renewed.

YES, the flywheel DID come off much easier this time round.

I now have the flywheel's inner lip, where it may meet the primary gear C washer, machined on a lathe by 1/8th inch to overcome this and am on the second rebuild of the engine.

Flywheel (and pressure plate) weights

The weight comparisons are as follows:

See also the table at the bottom of this page: http://cwis.kub.nl/~dbi/users/theo/flywheel.htm (backplates as well as flywheels)

The normal backplates are made from grey iron. The steel backplates are not actually steel, they are made from better quality SG iron. You'll have no problems with using this on a road car.

If you're worried it will explode, it doesn't take much to work out what direction the shrapnel will be heading! (Go to a sports shop and buy yourself a cricketers box/jock strap!!) Or convert to LHD!