Pressure Plate Bolt Clearance Options

[aggiezig]

Howdy 914World

I am in the process of reassembling my car and decided to go ahead and mount the clutch and pressure plate to the flywheel. I've only done this a couple of times before on VW beetles, so not a whole bunch of experience here but seems pretty straight forward.

When I mated everything up together, I noticed there was quite a bit of gap between the pressure plate ears and the flywheel mating surface (probably .25" or so). But, I figure this may be normal and the ears cinch up when you go to tighten the PP down.

However, I did run into an issue when snugging everything up. There doesn't appear to be enough clearance around the PP to use regular hex head bolts. IE: the socket can't fit on the bolt head. Also, by the time I got them as far tightened as I could, the heads were at or below the level of the starter ring. Is this normal? Should I be using allen head bolts here for the clearance?

I read on this post about machining clearances out of concern that perhaps my flywheel was machined improperly. On that diagram, my "A" measures 21.60MM which would appear to be out of spec.

Here are some pics of the situation:

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i.imgur.com-19557-1550037644.1.jpg)

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i.imgur.com-19557-1550037645.2.jpg)

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i.imgur.com-19557-1550037646.3.jpg)

What do you guys think? Is this normal / do I need allen head bolts? Or, is something strange going on here.

[aggiezig]

I ended up ordering a new flywheel and checking against mine. Yes, way out of spec. Not sure how the engine builder missed this but too long ago to do anything about it now.

My question now... I believe the flywheel was balanced with the rotating assembly. There is a yellow dot reference to install at TDC. Do I need to have this new flywheel balanced to match the old?

If so, does anyone know of a good machine shop in LA area that won’t charge an arm and a leg to do this?

Thanks

[type2man]

I ended up ordering a new flywheel and checking against mine. Yes, way out of spec. Not sure how the engine builder missed this but too long ago to do anything about it now.

My question now... I believe the flywheel was balanced with the rotating assembly. There is a yellow dot reference to install at TDC. Do I need to have this new flywheel balanced to match the old?

If so, does anyone know of a good machine shop in LA area that won’t charge an arm and a leg to do this?

Thanks

If you want to balance the flywheel you have to disassemble the engine. No good since its already built. Unless its a fully built engine that will only see high RPM, or if this is your one and only mode of transportation which will see 15k miles a year (which I doubt) then you can live without it.

[Olympic 914]

If you want to balance the flywheel you have to disassemble the engine. No good since its already built.

Not necessarily so. Depends on how your builder balanced the parts.

The machinist that balanced my components first balanced pistons with each other then the rods and crank. Added the fan and balanced that, then added the flywheel and balanced it.

The shops that Jeff posted should be able to balance the new flywheel and compare it to the old one, and match it if needed. If you really want to get picky about it then have them balance the pressure plate separately. Since you may one day replace it.

IMHO