Wrong Flywheel with conversion clutch

[Chuckmeister]

From the way it acted, I figured I had a cracked pressure plate spring as well as a disintegrating dual mass flywheel. I bought a Perfection conversion kit from Rock auto. Since my 89 7.3 doesn't have a turbo, I chose the Perfection, rather than the Valeo which was for aftermarket turbo. I have the Perfection installed and the ring gear is too large. The starter won't engage. My question for you guys who have been swapping stuff around for years is, is there a starter that would have the drive just a bit farther from the flywheel, or is there a solid flywheel that would accept the pressure plate. I can't find specs on bolt diameter and Rock Auto isn't much help. If I can find contact info for Perfection I'll look there. Any thoughts. Much appreciated.

 

[typ4]

You should have went with the Valeo. its for NA or aftermarket turbo.

 

[franklin2]

From the way it acted, I figured I had a cracked pressure plate spring as well as a disintegrating dual mass flywheel. I bought a Perfection conversion kit from Rock auto. Since my 89 7.3 doesn't have a turbo, I chose the Perfection, rather than the Valeo which was for aftermarket turbo. I have the Perfection installed and the ring gear is too large. The starter won't engage. My question for you guys who have been swapping stuff around for years is, is there a starter that would have the drive just a bit farther from the flywheel, or is there a solid flywheel that would accept the pressure plate. I can't find specs on bolt diameter and Rock Auto isn't much help. If I can find contact info for Perfection I'll look there. Any thoughts. Much appreciated.

Find the number on the box and plug it in. See what application it's for. I know it's already in the truck, but I wonder if you could get any numbers off the actual pieces.

I say this because I bought a set of rear brake shoes for my truck from RockAuto. I went to put them on, and they would not fit. I looked the numbers up online, the numbers on the box were correct, but the numbers on the actual shoes were different and the wrong ones. I went on RockAuto's site and was going to do a return. They had this little routine I had to click on and they wanted to know the numbers on the box and the numbers on the shoes. After I plugged that in, it told me just to keep what I had, they would send me another set. They were the right ones that time. It was pretty painless, but you can't get in a hurry, it took a few days.

 

[Chuckmeister]

Good thought to look on the box. If I can come up with a part number for the pressure plat, that should make it easy to match with a smaller flywheel. I've found other suppliers who give more dimensions. Looks like my original flywheel is 15 11/16. Somewhere I've seen the one that is now in the truck at 15 7/8. They all seem to have 55 teeth. Short term, I guess they aren't fussy about good meshing with the starter. Thanks for the tip

 

[Chuckmeister]

I've learned a lot about flywheels and clutches. None of the suppliers have complete info. To backtrack, I ordered a perfection conversion kit from Rock Auto. after almost a year of trying to find time to put it in myself, I hired a young guy in a new shop to do it. The starter didn't mesh with the flywheel. It appeared that the flywheel was too big. The engine code was an "M" so I aassumed that I had the wrong kit. I finally found a flywheel that gave the specs of bolt circles, diameter, etc and bought it. The inside box said LUK. Turned out to be identical with the one we thought was too big. I finally got my head up between the engine and starter to see if something had wedged in and cocked the starter. I was looking at an obviously used but empty bolt hole. There were two options for mounting the starter and my mechanic had chosen the wrong ones. Bottom line, Valeo, Luk, and Perfection 12" conversion flywheels are all the same. I have a Luk flywheel for sale. Hope this will save someone else from going down rabbit paths.

 

[Old Goat]

First I have heard there are 2 options to mount the Starter.
There are only 3 holes as far as I know to screw in the 3 bolts.
I`ll take a look at one of my spare engines.

I just installed a new 12" LUK Clutch assembly. Had the old FW turned (resurfaced) and reinstalled it with new Bolts.
Never touched the Starter. It all can be R & R`d w/o removing the Starter.

Goat

 

[Chuckmeister]

Good info. I wish I'd one it myself. Thnx

 

[Old Goat]

If you need new Fly Wheel Bolts Russ has them.

Single Mass flywheel bolts.

russrepair.com

And for the Pressure Plate, I replaced mine with ARP Bolts.

One of the FW bolts was a hard war store one and one on the PP as well. Also didn`t know how many times it had been replaced over the years and what torque was applied to the bolts. So gave me piece of mind to just replace them.

On my 86 the PP Bolts are 5/16", check your application.


Goat