Flywheel Questions!

darkstar_one

Registered User
Okay dudes and duda's!

i am in the process of converting my AOD into a 5 SPeed! but i ran into a lil problem that i am worried! I got my parts from a XR7! Now i am reading that i need to get the right flywheel? There are 2 types of flywheel...?? Am i in trouble?
 
""When your looking for the donor car make sure you get the proper flywheel. The 1989 SC had two different cranks. A Duracast and a Forged. The Duracast crank had a weighted flywheel while the Forged crank had a 0 balance flywheel. You can see a picture here of what a Duracast flywheel looks like. Notice the section that has been removed for balancing (on the right). Here is what the backside of a 0 balanced flywheel looks like (this is a 13lb aluminum model). ""


http://sc.tbkhomeworld.com/



is he correct?
 
There Were Two Different Cranks Used, Not Sure About The Flywheels, Though. Anyone Know How To Tell The Difference W/out Pulling The Tranny?
 
darkstar_one said:
""When your looking for the donor car make sure you get the proper flywheel. The 1989 SC had two different cranks. A Duracast and a Forged. The Duracast crank had a weighted flywheel while the Forged crank had a 0 balance flywheel. You can see a picture here of what a Duracast flywheel looks like. Notice the section that has been removed for balancing (on the right). Here is what the backside of a 0 balanced flywheel looks like (this is a 13lb aluminum model). ""


http://sc.tbkhomeworld.com/

is he correct?
That link doesn't work, plus the gentlemen that has that site is out of the SC love triangle.....but I would say that he is incorrect! He is referring to the crank not the flywheel, as far as I can tell.
 
If you want one, I have a zero balance SC flywheel and I have a 28oz weighted aluminum flywheel, both extras collecting dust in my garage.

I'm in Michigan. If you're interested I'm at slycrew@bignet.net
 
He is correct.
I was working with him trying to figure out the horrible shaking problem he had with his car, that turned out to be him putting the imbalance flywheel on his zero balance engine. The early '89 cars with the different crankshafts were balanced differently than the forged cranks most SC's have.

I think you can tell from the VIN which type of crank the engine has. If the 8th digit is "R" you should be OK.

Click here and scroll about 3/4 of the way down.
 
If you have a a flywheel thats looks like this on the back you have no worries.
If it has part of the back side of the flywheel missing like a depression then you have a 89 duracast crank flywheel.
 

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god dammit son of a bitch! stupid f*cken ford! I have the DURACAST one! Now i am extremely pissed! Anyone... help me! somebody give me or sell me a very good ZERO BALANCED FLYWHEEL! or should i just get one from FORD! they are 150.00 with CORE! HELP HELP HELP!
 

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As long as you didnt go though all the trouble of installing it to find out its the wrong flywheel :eek: some have not been so lucky and had no clue to what was wrong. You have a rare part there that im sure some one could use.
 
scbird1 said:
As long as you didnt go though all the trouble of installing it to find out its the wrong flywheel :eek: some have not been so lucky and had no clue to what was wrong. You have a rare part there that im sure some one could use.


if by rare you mean useless.. then yes i do have a useless part here! seriously what is wrong with FORD! anyone care to answer? have a shop balance it? is it worth it? would it be worth it?
 
darkstar_one said:
if by rare you mean useless.. then yes i do have a useless part here! seriously what is wrong with FORD! anyone care to answer? have a shop balance it? is it worth it? would it be worth it?

Damn looks like you got bit too. I don't beleive there were that many duracast cars actually made. It seems really odd that so many people doing a trans swap end up with those as donar cars.

As far as having a shop balance that, I don't know if it would be possible or worth it. That needs a LOT of metal to be brought into balance. I'd see if you can find someone parting out another 5-speed. Or, if you have an extra $425 or so, get the aluminum one from Mcloed for sure.

I see you are in L.A.?? Maybe Manny has somehting you can use. He is not too far, and last I heard he was parting out about 9 SC's...
 
Manny is a pimp...If you can understand what the he11 he is saying. And I will take a stab at those worthless F%$ks that work as the engineers there. If it looks good on paper then it must be good to go. I KNOW this for a fact that it gets said to the people who actually try to bring thier ideas to life. I had someone call me one day (that person still works for the same company so I will leave that persons name out of it) and tell me that the engineer from Ford had called and wanted to know the status of an item that this company was building. This person told Ford that they had run into some problems with fitment and strength of the parts and it looked as if the idea had many flaws. This person called me for advice. I pulled out the old thinking cap and we put our heads together. We both decied the idea was more of a hassle then it was worth to make work properly. This person called the eingeneer back and was told "The (produce/idea) will work, it works on paper and it will work. Do it because we are Ford and we said so".

I am not a fan of those worthless bastards on any level. Dont take offence if you or a loved one is an employee of satan, I mean Ford. I just really hated fixing some of the screw ups that made it on to the street and were sent to fail. I did not see this one but, there was a pickup that came through the shop with "This one will be back" in yellow markings on the tranny pump. The factory guy came out and looked at it. From there who knows what happened. We also used to get the cop cars in with things like a nut on a string inside the door so when you turned the corner it would go tic, tic, tic.

You get the idea. However I think your problem might be from a different source. I think that engine probably had parts cast at a different plant. Once they figured the stuff shold be all the same the stopped casting like that. Kinda like the Romeo and Windsor 4.6s. The heads and crank are different. Not to mention the mains secure in different ways.

Chris
 
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Chris Walker said:
We also used to get the cop cars in with things like a nut on a string inside the door so when you turned the corner it would go tic, tic, tic.

Yeah, I'm sure Engineering was responsible for that.

Chris Walker said:
You get the idea. However I think your problem might be from a different source. I think that engine probably had parts cast at a different plant. Once they figured the stuff shold be all the same the stopped casting like that. Kinda like the Romeo and Windsor 4.6s. The heads and crank are different. Not to mention the mains secure in different ways.

Chris

The explaination I had heard was that the supplier who was contracted to supply crankshafts (The Duracast version) for the SC could not meet their requirements. They had a LOT of poorly made cranks. They were doing a lot of sorting and only send "good ones" to Ford for the development phase, therefore the problem was not known until the SC went into production.

The poor quality came to light when the supplier could not sort fast enough the keep the supply of useable cranks going into the assembly plant. As a quick fix Ford went overkill and had another supplier tool up the Forged crank that they knew would be strong enough without having to worry about durability testing so that they could get the new cranks into the supply chain fast enough to keep production of the SC going.

This is not to say the Duracast cranks are inferior to the Forged ones, but that the supply of Forged was more consistant. If you have a Duracast crank, you have a good one. The problem was they were scrapping as many as they were using.
 
My point on that was the demonic nature of the automotive industry beast. That incldes the overpaid plantworkers, the engineers, the salesmen. Like I said before I am not trying to insult anyone but working for those bastards left a bad taste in my mouth. They claimed to want to take care of you but when it came down to it they only threw money at the squeaky wheel.

So next time you feel like getting stoned off your @$$ and drunk as Gary Busey (sp) then go get a job at the factory. Then when you screw the pooch you have a uninon there to save your sorry @$$ and make the people who do a dam good job look bad.

Chris
 
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