How much can I safely lighten an A flywheel? I am restoring/rebuilding an old sprint car with a Miller/Ford engine, and right now it has a stock flywheel. Since this car is so light, and it has a quick change in it, I think I can lighten the flywheel, but don't know how much.
Also, Secrets just published an article with a good dimensional drawing AND a single deadly typo--the article is worth getting, but be sure to get the corrected dimension from them or me--I actually just got a postcard with the correction from them, but haven't gotten around to correlating it with the mag to see what they did. Whatever the mistake was, it must have been either one that prepared the wheel to explode immediately or one that went through into air, because they were damn quick to spread the word!
I think you can shave 20-25lb from the original 63lb 'wheel. Makes a hell of a difference and your centre main will thank you for it. I don't get Secrets, but Charlie has been on Ahooga and Fordbarn correcting the article. He was very apologetic for the typo and it sounds like he's making sure nobody uses those figures.
This is what an early 1928 Ford Mulit-Disk flywheel looks like after being turned down for sprint car use. Weight is 14 and a half pounds, diameter is 7 3/4, they took the time to degree it for camsaft timing setups. Note the ovaled bolt holes, must have one hell of a motor!
"I never got a postcard correction!" Oh-oh---looks like Charley Yapp wants you dead! I'll give you the info once I find the blasted magazine--I set it down somewhere in a mountain of randomized bibliography. Right now I don't know what the numbers mean. Probably something like the engineer who reversed a couple of numbers on a prototype part drawing--the machinist carefully read the blueprint calling for a bushing with 1/4" OD and 1/2" ID, ran a 1/2" drill through a 1/4" slug of br***, and with the great satisfaction of a job well done deposited the resulting s****ful of shavings in the engineer's hand. The revenge of the careful.
Bruce, Almost that bad, here is the picture and dimension corrected. That is a bad place to remove an extra .4225".
Thanks--I can't see much detail on my primitive monitor, but that does look like it would come real close to air over there... One of the most chilling pictures I ever saw in a car magazine was a picture of the ****pit of a '55 Chevy that had just undergone a flywheel failure at the dragstrip; The dashboard was bent upward more than a foot in the center, steering, brake, and clutch controls were shredded or gone, most of the floor was gone or shredded and folded upward...they didn't say what happened to the driver, but there certainly couldn't have been much left of his southern half. I think that particular wreck led to the rule that all stickshift Chevies except for hydraulic lifter stockers had to have a ****tershield regardless of cl***. If that had been a Model A with cowl tank...!!! On the other hand, my reading leads me to believe that the heavy flywheel is the enemy of the center main. I kinda like the idea of converting to a V8 wheel on a banger--anybody actually do that conversion here?
Interesting pictures of the cut down multi clutch. I have the chance of a complete multi clutch ***embly with the bellhousing, clutch arm and everything else that is special to the multi disk. I plan to do exactly as shown in the pictures and stated in the 100 mph book.
I'm leaning towards doing that on mine, if that day will ever come! SOSS had two articles (with pictures )on it, involving the subs***ution of a V-8 Bendix and welding a support for the Bendix end into the bellhousing. If you can't find it in the index, I will look.
The Lyndwood rail I'm restoring was parked in 1962 after this flywheel blew. That thing in the back is half of the 1/4 steel ****ter shield loop. Nobody got hurt, but a handbag was ripped off the sholder of a girl in the stands by some part that was never found.
I've got the articles. Since reading them, I have heard that late banger starters, maybe '33-4 and probably diamonds, were actually V8 starter parts ***embled onto a banger style rear casting. That might be an especially good starting point compared to a regular B starter.
I have one like that also, off my ex-sprint motor. As they are also cast, and even though the rotating m*** is greatly reduced, an old days' safety tip was to machine and press/shrink a section of .250 wall steel well casing over the OD, just in case.........
Before you buy it get a good inspection of the teeth inside the flywheel, that is the mail flaw in the design. The disks would wear notches in the sides and cause release problems. Shipping on a useless flywheel is something you can do without.
Good stuff, eh? Just the idea of being able to run even a stock V-8 wheel or (gasp) an aluminum one is VERY intriguing. Mods seem to be very minimal. Remember seeing the lightening job JWL did years back on a stock wheel? hhhmmmmm....
Bruce, I redid the picture, hopefully it can be seen better. I remember the same picture of the 55 Chev, with the clutch explosion. It does give you something to think about when chopping a flywheel. I agree that the V8 flywheel would be a better way to go on a mild banger. The only hard part to find, I think, would be the reversed bendix spring.
Definitely neat--even an iron V8 wheel would be a HUGE step forward. Someone now makes an aluminum banger flywheel in basically stock layou, but it's very expensive, and who needs that meandering design with half the m*** in there just to attach things that were designed too far apart? I heard that another multi-disc problem was clutch powder building up in the grooves, partially curable by drilling some exit holes... Trivia picked up somewhere: Early A's had a mushroom shift knob different from the round '29-36 type. Dealers were supposed to change shift knobs whenever an early car was upgraded to single disc setup so that on future encounters with the service department it would be clear that the procedure had been dealt with.
"here's mine. about 20 lbs. removed" Neat! The next possibility from here is to lose the pressure plate support rim and convert to 9" Long pressure plate. The rim is quite a chunk of weight itself, and the '35-42 plate is a bit lighter than the early type too.
It is good as the guy had collected it all to use in his '28 sedan and then lost his nerve at the last minute!
Well, I've decided to go with the later 9" V8 clutch, and can get rid of about 30 lbs total. That should make a difference.
i'm going to cut mine up too and go with a v8 clutch. at the same time i'm going to put in a 39 trans.
The Jalopy Journal
