Beware of alloy bellhousings! I ran one on my Spit for 5 years and when I
removed it found multiple fractures in it. Not Good! It now adornes the
wall. I have seen these explode into lots of shrapnel when a pressure plate
comes apart inside them. I had a friend who almost lost her foot when this
occurred in her Spridget.
Everything's a balance in Vintage Racing. This one is safety vs weight.
Scattershields can preveny injury if used with the alloy bellhousing.
Choose wisely.
Russ
At 10:13 AM 3/8/99 -0700, Mark J Bradakis wrote:
>
>Sounds like you two aren't on the same page of the parts book. Scott's
>"upright" seems to be the stamped steel shock tower that bolts to the frame,
>to which the spring, shock and upper A arms attach. Steve's "upright" is the
>part of the suspension with the trunnion at the bottom and the ball joint at
>the top, to which the hub and brake caliper attach.
>
>In any case, both items that deserve routine checks for cracks.
>
>On another note, pulled the motor and gearbox out of the Killer Spit
>yesterday. Finally got to investigate the clutch problems. As those of you
>at VTR in Hudson may recall, we were having troubles with the clutch, with
>symptoms similar to having an air bubble in the hydraulics. The hydraulics
>were fine, and the remote bleeder pipe makes checking that pretty easy now.
>The problem was with the pressure plate. On the stock 1500 style clutch
>cover, there are three places where the pressure plate attaches to the
>diaphragm spring with a bolt and clamp arrangement. On Killer's clutch, one
>bolt was tight, one was ready to fall out, and one was bits of battered metal
>scattered through the bellhousing. So basically for the last half of the
>season we were only lifting at most half the pressure plate when stepping on
>the clutch. Cute.
>
>The clutch should work better when the car makes its next appearence. Should
>have an alloy flywheel, new clutch cover, different gearbox and an alloy
>bellhousing. The parts we plan to install should end up saving us on the
>order of 40 pounds. Gee, I wonder if losing 8 pounds or so off the flywheel
>will make any difference in the way the car behaves, other than the dead
>weight savings?
>
>mjb.
>
|