Bellhousing - telling a 6v from a 12v

[70bus]

Before I send off the tranny and start putting together a motor, I need to know what flywheel to use; the truck is a 65, BUT is factory 12v. So is the bellhousing already the right size, or did it have one of the weird flywheels that were 6v size but 12v teeth?

I do not have a spare flywheel lying around to slap in it and see, so I'm hoping these pics give some clues - I see an area at right that looks machined, and they broke through into the bolt thread, but don't know if that's enough to fit a 12v flywheel. Where do i measure for front-to-back clearance?

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Craig K
70 Neunsitzer
65 Pritschenwagen
"If Von Dutch was alive, he'd walk in there with a pistol and shoot these people."
-Robert Williams

[Malokin Martin]

Usable tranny cores are getting harder to find.

6 volt flywheels are super hard to find and/or expensive.

So it doesn’t really matter what it WAS. What it WILL BE is a 12 volt. Which kind of sounds like a Chinese proverb

[70bus]

Ha - true! I briefly thought of keeping everything stock, but that seems difficult if it had some rare crank/FW combo. l am just hoping it's an expense I don't have to incur if already done.

Any issues with the starter opening? Slap a self-supporting one in and be happy?
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Craig K
70 Neunsitzer
65 Pritschenwagen
"If Von Dutch was alive, he'd walk in there with a pistol and shoot these people."
-Robert Williams

[Erik G]

yes on the auto starter, they have a bit more torque anyways.

looks like someone already ground it from 6v to 12v to me, as it's so thin in the bottom right stud area. Kinda excessive

[BarryL]

12 volt bellhousing.

6 volt bellhousing

But...

[Lind]

There are flywheels that have a 200mm clutch, but have the 6V ring gear.

You can also put a 6V ring gear onto any 12V flywheel, or at least your machinist can. You can get a 12V starter that has a 6V gear on it. It is a bit of work and expense, but by doing that, you don't have to grind out the bell housing.

All that said, your bell housing has already been ground out for a 12V flywheel.
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[70bus]

Thanks - with the exception of a flywheel, it sounds like I have what I need. And now I know what FW to get!
_________________
Craig K
70 Neunsitzer
65 Pritschenwagen
"If Von Dutch was alive, he'd walk in there with a pistol and shoot these people."
-Robert Williams

[Eric&Barb]

6 volt starter works great on 12 volt if one replaces the starter solenoid with 12 volt version. Using 6 volt solenoid on 12 volts system tends to bash the FW teeth.
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In Stereo, Where Available!

[70bus]

I had a 6v starter (SR11x) and also a 12v SR17x; since the bell appears to be clearanced I'm going to go w/ 12v FW/crank and the SR17x... Maybe I'll slap a 12v solenoid on the 11 as a backup.
_________________
Craig K
70 Neunsitzer
65 Pritschenwagen
"If Von Dutch was alive, he'd walk in there with a pistol and shoot these people."
-Robert Williams

[Eric&Barb]

[70bus]

Well, that was a fun 4 hours.

Since the junkyard swiped my motor before the tow truck showed up, I have no idea what they had on it… but it must not have been a 12v flywheel.

So close, but clearly not hogged out enough. One guesses the truck came with a 6v fw with 12v teeth on it. Parts manual indicates starter and solenoid were 12v. I can either hog out ( and maybe screw up bellhousing ) or look for proper fw, and give up on idea of driving it this week. :)

I’m just really puzzled how this wasn’t caught earlier; the yard said they finally junked the bus - parts runner- when employee “burned up 3rd motor in a row.” Maybe they carefully pulled fw and put it on new motor each time but when you have dozens of engines lying around surely the pull is there to simply toss one in regardless of niceties. Maybe the yard meant starter when they mentioned burned motors…

4 hour comment comes from length of time it took to get fw pulled out from bell housing it was in good.
_________________
Craig K
70 Neunsitzer
65 Pritschenwagen
"If Von Dutch was alive, he'd walk in there with a pistol and shoot these people."
-Robert Williams

[Eric&Barb]

Just install the engine and as you move it into the bell housing turn the crankshaft by hand to have the FW gear teeth cut out the needed material. To make this easier, remove the spark plugs or at least loosen them up, so you do not have to fight the compression.

Do beware the resulting metal dust is mostly magnesium and such is highly flammable. So any hand tools used in there if they make a spark, say if you hit a steel fastener it can get exciting!!
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In Stereo, Where Available!

[70bus]

I was doing that a little at the start; it got better up to the end and then locked so tight into the metal I couldn't separate them for some time - you can see that in one pic where a tooth made a horizontal line going in,but vertical ones coming out as I rocked motor from side to side.

It doesn't look too bad, and handturning the motor to shave sounds less dangerous than grinding magnesium! Even my local shop told me this morning of a customer who set himself ablaze that way ("remove trans mount and starter and get all steel out of area or go up like my customer" was the advice).

It was just frustrating because this was supposedly done before, and I was going to actually drive it yesterday. Sorta par for this truck.
_________________
Craig K
70 Neunsitzer
65 Pritschenwagen
"If Von Dutch was alive, he'd walk in there with a pistol and shoot these people."
-Robert Williams

[70bus]

What's interesting are the marks at 10 and 2; those are deep, yet the marks closest to face indicate other flywheels might have spun if they had even the slightest variance in manufacturing tolerances.

The bosses at 8 and 4 are ground out enough to have a hole through to stud so no clue why the top ones weren't touched.

Anyways, back to gruntwork in the garage instead of flying down the road...
_________________
Craig K
70 Neunsitzer
65 Pritschenwagen
"If Von Dutch was alive, he'd walk in there with a pistol and shoot these people."
-Robert Williams

[70bus]

Took a round file and then a flat file to bosses at 10 and 2; slapped motor in and slowly inched it forward while endlessly turning pulley withmy crescent wrench one-half revolution at a time. My repro Hazet Assistent stool was very handy for this 3-hour toil. I got it to where it turns freely but still makes a slight scrape in one or two small spots; I'm pretty confident the starter and first 10 seconds of fireup will not be impeded by it as they hone trans. I will doublecheck it spins freely before I start it up tho. I'll have to take motor out before use again, as won't want those shavings suck in there.

I am going with tolerance stack/manufacturing differences, as the trans was clearly clearanced before - marks under the paint show where. And it obviously isn't a huge difference, apart from the bosses.

Made VERY sure nothing was hitting those mount bolts.
_________________
Craig K
70 Neunsitzer
65 Pritschenwagen
"If Von Dutch was alive, he'd walk in there with a pistol and shoot these people."
-Robert Williams

[BarryL]

[70bus]