tap crank dowel pin and bolt?

[BFB]

might be a dumb question, but today while i was working on an engine one of my guys stated he cant believe what the gland nuts are torqued to and asked me why not tap the cranks dowel pin holes and bolt the flywheel down them and and then the gland nut?
only thing i could tell him was that they make flanged cranks but i had nothing else to say about his idea.
afterthoughts, i would think if alllen head bolts were used they could be recessed into the crank. id also think they couldn't be torqued down enough and would probably keep the gland nut from tightening the flywheel down properly.
other than that, i dunno. thoughts? anyone done it ?
_________________
Forced induction can overcome a lot of obsticles that gets in it's way
"You are the Engineer and the Mechanic.  
Build it your way not the way someone else does it. Their way might not work for you." - clonebug
An interesting thing happens in forums where everyone starts parroting the same thing and "common knowledge" takes over.
“ The monkey see monkey do mentality seems to run deep in VW people. "Gene Berg said it was so 30 years ago so thats the way it is" “ - bdkw1

[vwracerdave]

Back in the 1940's the 1st VW's only had 25 horse engines and 4 dowels and a gland nut was plenty. The later Type IV engines did have bolts instead of dowel pins.
_________________
2017 Street Comp Champion - Thunder Valley Raceway Park - Noble, OK
2010 Sportsman ET Champion - Mid-America Dragway - Arkansas City, KS
1997 Sportsman ET Champion - Thunder Valley Raceway Park - Noble ,OK

[evanfrucht]

Interesting idea. I think there would not be enough room for the bolt heads tho, even allen.

Even with only 4 allen head bolts I think the gland nut and socket wouldn't fit, and then there's the issue of the gland nut washer as well.

I like your guys thinking but I don't see it really being practically possible.
_________________
1967 Bug ( the daily rod )
1964 Fury Wagon ( the pavement shredder )

[UK Luke 72]

I would expect the dowels to take shear loading much better than any bolt, also, the load can be distributed across the dowels more effectively. Unless you had properly fitted bolts but I don't know how you'd do that.

Flanged cranks/TIV have a larger BCD which helps massively too don't forget.
_________________
2276 Beetle build https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=670744&highlight=2276+beetle+daily
2276 EFI Conversion https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=689172

[jsturtlebuggy]

SCAT when it first came out with its’ Counterweighted crankshafts it used 8 SPS bolts to hold flywheel to crankshaft.
They found out it did not really work and developed the flanged crankshaft that is a better setup.
_________________
Joseph
Fair Oaks/Orangevale, CA
Elrod Motorsports
Motion Tire Motorsports
Having fun with Dune Buggies since 1970
Into Volkswagens since 1960