[T2] Crankshaft: how screwed am I?

[david raistrick]

>>> And one more thing: between the flywheel and the crankshaft was a thin steel shim with four perforations for the dowels. Bentley doesn't show it and I

On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 3:58 PM, Harris Pat <sammler.permanent at gmail.com> wrote:
> I believe these are to get the crankshaft end play to the correct specs. Google for "crankshaft thrust washers/shims" for other examples.


Meant to reply to this the other day...

The metal (or paper) gasket between the crankshaft end and the
flywheel is a thing of much discussion....

It's often used as a way to get extra end-play (which then can be fine
tuned using shims between the thrust bearing and the flywheel), but
they're not really shims.

Our engines have seen much hackage and mix and matching of parts over
the years, though.

The metal gaskets that sit over the 4 dowels are -supposed- to only be
used on non-o-ring flywheels.  The paper 4 hole gaskets are for
specific early 40hp motors.   o-ring flywheels use no gasket (except
where a paper gasket is right).

At least, off the top of my head.

And they're gaskets, not shims.  Find them in any engine gasket set.


As for the OP's original issue:

if you have an 8 dowel crank, you MAY be able to just use the other 4
holes - but maybe not.  Sometimes one of those extra pins gets off-set
a bit (and the matching flywheel would be drilled with the same offset
hole), to prevent the flywheel/crank from being repositioned.

As for the chewed up end of the crank....it really depends.  And it's
up to you.  Keep in mind that the flywheel rides on that surface, and
is presumably 100% square to crank.   if you hammer or file on it, and
the flywheel sits cockeyed, you'll wind up with another loose gland
nut eventually, and probably a lot of funny vibration and clutch
wear.....


if it were mine, I'll tear it down, take the crank to a machine shop
and get them to clean it up flat.  .0005" might do the trick.  put a
fresh metal gasket in, reset end play (after sealing and torquing
everything properly during reassembly), and be good to go.    :)