Flywheel Resurfacing

Mayor West

Goblin Guru
Hey everyone, @OptimizePrime and I are looking for a place to resurface our stock flywheels. I know O'Reilly's has the equipment to do it but @OptimizePrime drove out to one yesterday and they said it didn't fit.

Who has had their flywheel resurfaced there? Anywhere else? Thoughts/advice on doing this rather than replacing it?

I'm hoping to lean on that the tech who worked with @OptimizePrime was just not well informed and that they can do it after all.
 

OptimizePrime

Goblin Guru
To add a little color to the above, O'Reilly's is a hit or miss. In calling around, they either don't have the machine, no longer do it, or have the machine just nobody knows how to use it.

When I finally found an O'Reilly's where they had the machine and someone who knew how to use it, the guy said their bit couldn't resurface the full face of the flywheel due to how the flywheel is manufactured with the outside lip and the way the bit is made. :rolleyes: If you can manage to overcome all of this, it appears to be about $30 vs $150 + shipping from zzp for a new one.

I have called CarQuest / Advanced, Autozone, O'Reilly's, Napa and none of them do it. Seems like we would have to take them to a local machine shop.
 

Ross

Goblin Guru
I had O"Reilly resurface my flywheel. They had a base price of ~$40 for a single surface flywheel, but my flywheel has an additional surface at the outer edge that required a second surface to be ground, so I paid $80.
 

Mayor West

Goblin Guru
I had O"Reilly resurface my flywheel. They had a base price of ~$40 for a single surface flywheel, but my flywheel has an additional surface at the outer edge that required a second surface to be ground, so I paid $80.
Two surfaces? Am I missing something?
 

Ross

Goblin Guru
Two surfaces? Am I missing something?
The flywheel has a surface that engages the clutch plate, and a higher surface that the pressure plate mounts too.
So when they ground .020" off of the inner clutch surface, they also had to grind .020" off of the pressure plate mount surface, in order to maintain the correct distance.
 

OptimizePrime

Goblin Guru
:( I don't trust O'Reilly's to know to do this. Seems a bit of a hassle with the cost being close enough to warrant just going new. Thanks all for your replies
 

OptimizePrime

Goblin Guru
I also bought the ebay flywheel which was said to work with the LSJ and LNF. Unfortunately it's significantly lighter than the stock LNF flywheel and the bolt holes don't line up so it can't be installed. It's an LSJ specific flywheel so I'll (probably we) will have to figure out another solution.


*** EDIT - THE LSJ FLYWHEEL DOES WORK ON AN LNF, I'M JUST AN IDIOT ***
13487
 
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Ross

Goblin Guru
Do those ARP bolts fit in an LNF?
I am going to grind my ARP heads down 1mm to make them fit in my LSJ.
 

Vwsaabvt

Goblin Guru
I also bought the ebay flywheel which was said to work with the LSJ and LNF. Unfortunately it's significantly lighter than the stock LNF flywheel and the bolt holes don't line up so it can't be installed. It's an LSJ specific flywheel so I'll (probably we) will have to figure out another solution.

View attachment 13487
try every combination of flywheel bolt holes to crank holes, I could only get the one on my lsj to line up one way. I thought it was mis-drilled at first.
 

Desert Sasqwatch

Goblin Guru
Ross, be careful grinding. If you put too much heat into the bolt head it will loose temper and become weak. I seen this happen before - using Dodge flywheel bolts on a Ford 351 Cleveland, ground the heads down for clearance and broke them all on the first race at the track. Not pretty.
 

Lonny

Administrator
Staff member
On some flywheels, one bot hole is drilled offset to assure the flywheel goes on the crank the same way every time. This is for balancing purposes.

When you balance your rotating assembly, you first spin up your crank and get it balanced. Then you bolt on the flywheel and balance it.

When you reinstall your flywheel after balancing your engine, you should always reposition it the way you had it when you balanced it.

I wasn't aware that Ecotec engines had an offset flywheel bolt. So you may have another problem.
 
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