Today, I removed the dowel pins from my engine block because the bell housing wouldn't fit over them. One of the dowels was misaligned, pointing significantly to the left. The dowels are also rusty and corroded. I intend to purchase new dowels. Before checking the alignment, I presume I should simply buy standard dowels. If the alignment is off, I'll need to buy additional dowels. Is this correct?

Any tips or advice is appreciated!

 

U must have the dowel pins installed to connect the tranny with the block so that everything aligns. This is absolutely necessary if you have a manual tranny. otherwise u will be replacing the clutch & maybe flywheel.

 

So there's more info needed for a good answer. The dowel pins locate the bell and trans and their relation of the axis of the crank centerline and the trans centerline. I'd your using a stock engine w stock trans/clutch then replace the dowel pins w stock ones. If you have a different combo, like a SFI bell and t56 you'll need to put in stock dowels and the use a dial indicator to properly locate/align your bell. If it's in spec cool. If not your gonna need offset dowels. It's all about trans/crank alignment. If it's off you'll potentially have shifting issues and premature wear on multiple components.

 

I had never planned on not running any dowels at all. I had planned on getting new stock pins, locate/align, and going from there. My hope is that I'm in spec with the stock pins but I never seem to be that lucky.

 

After pulling out those dowels, I'd like to know how/why it was pointing left at all. The pin itself doesn't look bent and without the pins the bellhousing sits nice and flush up against the back of the block. I'll get some new maybe longer pins today and see how it goes...

FYI...I'm working with an aluminum LS block and Lakewood aluminum bell housing

 

How is it going now?


 

I actually put the old dowel pins in Evaporust and they looked good as new after about 8 hours. I reinstalled them into the block and they look good and straight. I'm in the process of trying to figure out why my transmission face is not parallel with the block. I need to get that measurement in spec before checking for run-out.