Clutch build up

With the bell housing dialled in and the gearbox assembled I moved onto finally assembling the clutch to the engine.

First off I modified the block plate lower starter mounting hole to account for the alignment adjustment made by the offset dowels, Oh and painted the block plate red to match the engine! You can just see here how the heat of running the engine has changed the paint colour, they are both painted from the same can!


Next I pressed the flywheel dowel pins into place (glad I got that press!) and cleaned the flywheel, paying particular attention to the clutch surface. Oh and also the flywheel bolts and holes in the crank to ensure a good seal.

After a bit of wrestling with the flywheel I got it onto its register on the crank with all the bolt holes lined up. It appears it only fits on in two locations as although the holes look evenly spaced, they are not! Given the weight of the flywheel it wasnt fun battling with it to get it lined up and on!

Now its important to use thread sealer on the flywheel bolts as the crank drillings are open to the sump, as I found out on the dyno oil will work its way past the threads. So Loctite 577 was used as I know it fuel safe so I figured it would also be oil safe!


With the flywheel on the clutch plate was installed on its locating tool and inserted into the pilot bearing.

Finally the clutch cover was cleaned again to remove a traces of grease/oil and snapped over its dowel pins on the flywheel. The bolts thread locked with loctite and installed finger tight at first then 2-3 turns at a time wound in to bring the cover tight to the clutch plate.

Final thing tonight was to mount the bell housing to the engine with he clutch fork in place. I just wanted to see how the release bearing was going to sit against the clutch cover.


Luckily it all looks OK, also with the rubber boot on the clutch fork is naturally drawing the release bearing away from the cover so I that's stopped me worrying that the boot would cause the bearing to ride the cover.

So thats it, all I need now is the moly spray to treat the input shaft and I think the gearbox assembly can be mounted to the engine!