Technical Another G/Box Input Shaft Bearing Thread !

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Technical Another G/Box Input Shaft Bearing Thread !

Here my 1.2 69hp they should have a 200mm clutch plate that covered the full mating surface.

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Our Panda is 59 HP and uses 180mm friction plate. So not sure if mine started out flat with that outer ring and has now worn a bit thinner. Seems to be approx 1mm lower in the area that mates with the friction plate. Not sure if that is considered wear in terms of it's overall thickness and lifespan and have only done 53k miles. Trying to find specs for flywheel minimums, like you can get for brake discs but had no luck up to now.
 
Our Panda is 59 HP and uses 180mm friction plate. So not sure if mine started out flat with that outer ring and has now worn a bit thinner. Seems to be approx 1mm lower in the area that mates with the friction plate. Not sure if that is considered wear in terms of it's overall thickness and lifespan and have only done 53k miles. Trying to find specs for flywheel minimums, like you can get for brake discs but had no luck up to now.
Surprised it's not a 69hp vvt. Mines also a 2010 1.2

Someone posted some some pictures of a 2009 69hp different cam pulley. All in one coil pack but not vvt, I thought by 2010 all would have been 69hp

I guess manufacting, dates, registration dates, month and so on make the cross over period messy

Fiat sell both brand new and factory recondioned flywheel here a recondion one for your car

I would "guess" the step is the wear indicator, I can't find any documation to that fact

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Both Haynes and elearn suggest replacing the bolts,
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I not sure which way I would go if I had to take the flywheel off, replace or add fresh thread lock. I don't have a local fiat dealer near me.
 
One millimetre off the flywheel will zero effect on the clutch itself. The tiny additional throw should be too small to affect the slave cylinder/cable release system.
 
One millimetre off the flywheel will zero effect on the clutch itself. The tiny additional throw should be too small to affect the slave cylinder/cable release system.
Why not measure what you take from the centre and remove the same from the edge

There's only approx 3 or 4mm of clamping to start with

Having said that finding a decent secondhand one would probably be cheaper

These flywheels have had 3.5kg cut out of them in the past
 
Surprised it's not a 69hp vvt. Mines also a 2010 1.2

Someone posted some some pictures of a 2009 69hp different cam pulley. All in one coil pack but not vvt, I thought by 2010 all would have been 69hp

I guess manufacting, dates, registration dates, month and so on make the cross over period messy

Fiat sell both brand new and factory recondioned flywheel here a recondion one for your car

I would "guess" the step is the wear indicator, I can't find any documation to that fact

View attachment 424942

Both Haynes and elearn suggest replacing the bolts,
View attachment 424944
I not sure which way I would go if I had to take the flywheel off, replace or add fresh thread lock. I don't have a local fiat dealer near me.
Ours first registered March 2010, although I do know the dealership did first registration and we were classed as 2nd keeper and had something like 50 miles on it IIRC. Thanks for the info mate. I think your deduction is logical about the wear step, as once down to that level the friction plate on the engine side will be on the same plane as the pressure plate mounting. As mine is not there yet I have decided to bung in the new clutch and take my chances, that all should be good for at least the next 5 years or so based on predicted mileage. I am re-using the flywheel bolts as no indication at all that they are stretched and don't bind it all and hand tighten very easily. So just a touch of threadloc for those. I did decided to replace the rear crankshaft seal and glad I did as was initially airing on the side of leave well alone but when I took it out, the rubber did look like it was starting to fatigue and lots of striations around the circumference. I did make a little tool to lock flywheel to remove the bolts. Used a short piece of 20x20mm box section with 2mm wall. This fits snug over the clutch housing location dowel and welded some 3mm flat bar across it to mesh with the teeth of flywheel. Put a couple of white paint marks to show orientation of box section once tightened. I also made a tool for the crank seal as don't like to tap at them around the perimeter and hope they enter. I don't do them enough to have a good feel for it so wanted something that would even the pressure all round, could not use the flywheel bolts to pull it up and only had a couple of M8's that were long enough due to the thickness of the timber I used. It turns out they were sufficient and pulled the seal in fairly evenly. I didn't have any offcuts of pipe or anything else suitably sized but did have some small offcuts of hardwood. Routed out the middle bits to allow for the lumps and dowels etc. It ended up a bit rough as did freehand but it did the job and better than me and poor eyesight messing up trying to hammer in the seal. Sorry it's picture heavy chaps but this is for my benefit as if I need to look at this again I know everything will be documented here rather than me try to remember what the hell I did a few years down the line.
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One millimetre off the flywheel will zero effect on the clutch itself. The tiny additional throw should be too small to affect the slave cylinder/cable release system.
That is the conclusion I reached, for better or worse and thanks for your input. 🤞
 
You should get that seal pusher 3D printed and sell them on eBay.
I can't imagine the demand would be there and obviously very specific to just that size of seal ? I didn't realise 3d printing had become cost effective for production, thought it was still for hobbyists / research and development type projects.
 
So your gap about 3 stanley blades (75 thou approx) and his gap was 25 thou. I think that proves what I was thinking in my photo's to be correct, that the bearing has indeed moved and resettled. So measuring the clearance gap from inner race to gear after failure may not be to original spec clearance. I think I will measure everything tomorrow, from housing to housing and see what is left minus the 14mm for the bearing.
Decided to thoroughly measure everything as can't put gearbox back together as waiting on some sealing goo. Initially I thought the shaft was one diameter apart from the obvious diameter change at the chamfer down to the spline. If we look back at post number 5 I took a measurement from the spline end to the face of inner race which was 87.7mm and you will also see in that photo that the inner race was beyond a very clear line which is were the shaft diameter of 20.0mm starts. You will see from my sketches that there should be a gap of 15.8mm (possibly is 16mm by design and my calipers are a little out but if I stick to my caliper measurements everything still remains consistently out together.) As the bearing is 14mm I want it to fully bear onto the 20mm diameter portion of the shaft and not 19.78mm portion, so if I shim 0.6mm from the gear face, the inner race should line up with that obvious line that it didn't do before and this will leave a 1.2mm gap at the shoulder of the bearing housing. Note this gap would have been closer to 1.9mm initially but the gear side of the race looked like it was touching the gear face. Not sure that would matter so much as both fixed and moving together but the new location will obviously seat it a bit further into the shoulder and give more clearance to the gear face. I think the important point here is that if the clearance is any greater than 1.8mm between inner race and gear face, the mating faces of gearbox housing and clutch housing will not meet and you would be relying on pushing the bearing up further up the shaft when torqing down the 2 mating surfaces, I don't personally think that is a good idea. I know people have had different clearances here to the gear and there is obviously some wiggle room but I know personally I feel much better for having measured everything and know there will be no issue when boxing back up. One other point is when you go beyond 0.6mm clearance to the gear face, the full 14mm depth of the inner race will not be supported and if the max clearance is used the effected depth of bearing being supported by 20mm shaft will be actually reduced from 14mm to 12.2mm, with 1.8mm of it's depth overhanging onto the portion of the shaft with the reduced diameter of 19.78mm.
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Decided to thoroughly measure everything as can't put gearbox back together as waiting on some sealing goo. Initially I thought the shaft was one diameter apart from the obvious diameter change at the chamfer down to the spline. If we look back at post number 5 I took a measurement from the spline end to the face of inner race which was 87.7mm and you will also see in that photo that the inner race was beyond a very clear line which is were the shaft diameter of 20.0mm starts. You will see from my sketches that there should be a gap of 15.8mm (possibly is 16mm by design and my calipers are a little out but if I stick to my caliper measurements everything still remains consistently out together.) As the bearing is 14mm I want it to fully bear onto the 20mm diameter portion of the shaft and not 19.78mm portion, so if I shim 0.6mm from the gear face, the inner race should line
Just for the sake of some completeness for this thread I will add some final points and observations.

1) As per the post above I did fit the bearing with 0.6mm clearance and all has been fine.
2) Not sure if this has been mentioned elsewhere but if attempting to use one of these type of centring tools, don't bother as they will not work on this particular model. The hole in the end of the crankshaft/flywheel is actually larger than the spline diameter of the input shaft. Therefore when you select the correct size dowel to fit that whole and then slide on the dowel that fits the hole, you will quickly realise that if you tighten the pressure plate, you can't get the flywheel centring dowel back out through the spline of the friction plate. Old friction plate used in pictures just to demonstrate.
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3) Then there is the plastic type centring tool which supposedly centres as it is drawn into the pressure fingers. It sort of works in principle but when you look it is not centred accurately and I think it's useless. I know some people will think it gets it close enough but I think that is a problem in itself and part of the reason why I had a problem when I did the clutch 4 years ago. I have seen people getting it close, then they just use brute force and ignorance to force the input shaft in. I have seen the engine lowered so far to one side that it is putting a lot of strain on the left side engine mount and so they can get a better angle to try and get the clutch housing/ g box to enter more easily. I believe this method could actually be the start of problems down the line with bearing and seals. The issue with entry is twofold, the friction plate not being centred accurately and the peaks and troughs of the splines on both the friction plate and the input shaft not aligned.

4) I did use the plastic centring tool but only as a clamp. I divided the splines into 3 equally spaced (120 degrees apart) and then measured from the valley of each spline to the front edge of the holes the pressure plate that locate to the dowels on the flywheel. It is then very accurately centred, when the 3 measurements are equal and immediately removes that as a potential issue when trying to enter the input shaft. I would use calipers as the blades locate perfectly and assure you are measuring in exactly the same place each time. A ruler would make it too hit and miss IMO.

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So the plastic centring tool is just being used as a clamp and not to actually centre the friction plate. Measuring leaves no doubt at all that it is indeed in the centre.

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5) So with the clutch centred and fixed to flywheel that is one half of the potential issues taken care of. Now the process of raising and aligning clutch housing/g-box. I think it is much better to not let the engine lower to one side, find a way to raise g/box in such a way that it stays on the same plane as the engine. So the two mating surfaces of the clutch housing and the engine are parallel then once at the correct height and the input shaft is at the same height as the spline on the friction plate you only need to do a tiny rotation at most of the gearbox to align the peaks and troughs of the spline and the clutch/g-box slides straight in no bother. No wrestling with it at weird angles, no spline damage from attempts at using the g-box like a battering ram.

6) For gearbox reassembley sealing I did not use Loctite 573 as recommended by Fiat , at the time of this post 50ml cost about £25. I did find a product on ebay (Delta D510 multi-gasket) that seemed to fit the bill and a more reasonable price plus it was made in England ( I prefer to support home businesses were possible too ). I rang the company and they were very helpful too and at a cost of £13.99 for 75ml delivered for what appears to be an almost identical product, I decided to give it a shot. I used that for all mating surfaces on the gearbox with the exception of the end cover plate that goes over the 5th gear, for that I used V-Tech Vital Red RTV which I already had. I did leave a full 24hrs before filling the gearbox with oil as the data sheet for D510 did say that was the full cure time. I am not endorsing these products just sharing my own experience and approx 1 month later now have had no leaks or issues.

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So there you have it. Unlike the last time I fitted a new clutch to this car, there is no whirring noise and very smooth operation. I did go on and replace cambelt and water pump too but did not document that and fairly straight forward. The clutch and gearbox experiences all seem to be a little different from what I have read here so worthy of posting I felt. I hope some of the points I have made may help some people in the future but please note I am not a professional but as an engineer of another discipline do find that careful measurements help in all fields. I think this brings an end point to the thread but will try to answer any questions in the future should they arise and will be totally honest if the life of the new clutch and gearbox bearing and seal fail prematurely, I will update the thread accordingly.
 
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I can't imagine the demand would be there and obviously very specific to just that size of seal ? I didn't realise 3d printing had become cost effective for production, thought it was still for hobbyists / research and development type projects.
It isn't I looked into getting something like 10cm wide circle and about 40mn depth printed and it was like £60+
 
Fit the clutch with a wood dowel wrapped with tape and screw on the pressure plate cover. You can use a vernier depth gauge to measure the friction plate is concentric. Within 0.5mm would be good but it only has to be enough to align the bell housing dowels. I got better than that with a wood dowel alignment tool. I just have to be careful to not over-tighten the pressure plate screws, because the spring fingers do close up as it's compressed.
 
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