OK guys,
I need some help.
I can't get the counterweight off. I've tried the puller, and heating the counterweight, but it didn't work.
Does anyone have any cool tricks to help?
Thanks,
Chris
All sorts of horrors are visited to the flywheels and counterweights in removal attempts.
If you have struck the flywheel or counter weight in order to break the taper fit. Or you have pried on the flywheel or counter weight, or the engine has been stored by sitting it on the flywheel. Or you did not install the this thrust assembly yourself or know for a fact that a new assembly has been installed. You must proceed as though the thrust assembly has been destroyed, and replace all of the pieces that touch the thrust bearings, and the thrust bearings. All of the resistance you feel when you pry on the flywheel, and all of the resistance to you pounding on the flywheel or counter weight, is generated by the thrust assembly,and the very tiny needle bearings.
Remove the big nut with an impact gun. Screw the nut back onto the shaft, but leave a 1/8" gap to the flywheel or counter weight. Place the factory puller, or the Racing Beat puller, or a home made puller on the crank and tighten the bolts. ( a round piece of plate stock with 6 holes to match the threaded holes in the flywheel of counterweight) If the wheel does not pop off, heat one spot on the flywheel near the crank very hot. The wheel will pop loose. If you have not re-installed the big nut, the flywheel will come off with the puller attached and make a really ugly mark on the floor, or your foot.
If you have no equipment to remove the nut. Drill through the nut in a flat, in line with the crank with a 1/8" bit. Make 3 or 4 holes, close together (touching). Walk the nut off with a punch and light hammer. Keep the nut for removing the flywheel, and later to mount your big degree wheel. Buy a new nut or use a used nut in good condition.
Buy a new thrust washer for the back of the front counter weight. A new thrust plate. A new thrust washer for the front of the crank (thick) and two new bearings. Braze the old thrust plate to the bottom of your oil can to keep it from tipping over. Discard all or the other parts, so they can never find their way into another engine. The spacer sleeve can be used again.
A failed bearing produces tiny shards that will slip right through the bug screen on the oil pickup tube and lock up the oil pump. A common cause of death in rebuilt street engines.
When you strike the flywheel or counterweight in line with the crank, with enough force to deform the tapered hole and release the taper, you deform the thrust plate into a slightly conical shape. In this situation the bearings are being stressed only on their very outside ends. You would then be loading only a microscopic area of each roller, and the application book has no table for that. Could be in the millions of pounds per square foot. Same thing if you use pry tool or pound wedges under the flywheel to load the taper while you beat on it.
Stick a pry bar under the flywheel or counterweight near the crank and pry a bit, and the springy feel is thrust plate flex.
If you have just a counter weight, you can bend it, as it is quite malleable.
The rear thrust bearing in a street car will sometimes fail when a high pressure clutch cover is installed. Nothing to do with the bearings rating, just the thrust plate flex problem. If the mounting diameter had been smaller, and, or the plate just a bit thicker, there would have been no failures at all. Now comes the FD twin turbo engine with bigger diameter thrust bearings. Why? Shorter lever arm on the thrust plate?
There is a proper method for removing these pieces. If you don't have the factory puller, or the Racing Beat replica, you can make your own. It will not hurt the crank, or the flywheel or the counter weight. If you leave the nut on the crank but loose 1/8" it won't even hurt you.
For a junk engine coming apart for rebuild, fine beat the crap out of it. But flush the thrust assembly as soon as the bolts are out of it. And build a puller for servicing your airplane engines. There are so few things that can go wrong inside this engine, that it seems a shame to add one.
Lynn E. Hanover