I'm installing a motor and tranny in one of my vehicles, and I'm going to install the clutch with the whole assembly out of the vehicle. In reading an article about clutches and bellhousings, the article strongly suggests checking runout on the bellhousing, crankshaft, and pilot bushing.

The motor will have a new crankshaft if it needs new bearings, and a new or resurfaced flywheel (depends if I can find a used one). Of course, I'll have an entirely new clutch assembly.

Is checking runout really all that important in the general scheme of things? The aluminum bellhousing that I'm using does need one of its holes retapped, so I'm a little concerned that it might not line up 100%, but I would imagine that the bearing retainer would center it properly in the bellhousing bore.

 

i'd say no one does. i did once when i installed a lakewood blow bell. it has hard or confusing to do. there were instructions with the bell telling how to do it. turns out everything was ok, or seemed ok to me but i wasn't very sure of the whole process.

 

I've never checked the pilot bushing. But it can't hurt to double check everything today.

I always check the bell housing alignment. Found too many that were off and the transmissions always shifted better after the bell was aligned.

Last one I did drove me nuts, kept changing everytime I R&R'd it while adjusting the pins. Then I discovered that the alignment holes in the bellhousing were oversize. So I used pins with a larger amount of offset to take up the slack.

This same bell housing also required the rear face trued up to be parallel with the front mounting plane.

RBob.

 

No one does except for the guys who are going fast. This is one of those little mods that seperate race cars from street cars. If that runout is extensive, it will eat up pilot bushings early. If you dont have a dial indicator what you might do is leave the bellhousiong bolts slightly loose, then bolt everything up, including the trans (maybe even crank the engine over on the starter , but be very careful, I said SLIGHTLY loose) and then tighten everything up. That way it all should have the chance to "normalize".