Got a Turbo 400 S/P behind my 472 Cadillac. The flexplate is destroyed. Getting ready to put the new one on but need some advice. The gentleman that owned the car before me used what looks to be a 5/8 inch thick plexigl*** square in between the mounting holes of TC and the flexplate. ***uming that everything else was ***embled properly (ha!), I think that is what caused the failure. One of the plexigl*** spacers must have broken (found it in the driveway) causing that bolt to work loose and throw the plate off balance. That bolt was hitting on something causing the noise that alerted me to the problem. My question is, can I just put this thing back together the way it was but use steel spacers rather than the plastic? It worked just fine up until that point but it seems that 5/8 inch is a bit much as far as spacing goes. Then again, The engine and transmission are mixed and matched and the spacing might be needed.
The only reason for spacing a torque converter back would be if you added a block saver plate or something else between the block and transmission. For example, there used to be adaptor plates available to use a BOP (Buick,Olds,Pontiac) Turbo transmissions behind Chevrolet engines. The adaptor was 3/8" thick thus spacing the transmission 3/8" back from the rear face of the block. To ensure correct converter engagement into the transmission you used 3/8" spacers between the flywheel and converter. Another example might be if you used those circle track rear engine side mount adaptors between the engine and bellhousing/transmission, then you would use the corresponding thickness spacer between the flywheel and converter. Frank
Ok, I can see that. There is an adapter plate. Didn't even think about that. It's not nearly as thick as these spacers are but it makes sense now. So, (in theory) I can just replace the spacer with steel or aluminium ones and put it back, right? I don't have to re-engineer this thing do I? I can ***ume that the 5/8 is correct.
The Jalopy Journal
