Post by Matt Culpepper 2300gearjammer on Sept 29, 2010 9:27:25 GMT -5
This is information everybody should know and I was surprised at the results. I spent several hours yesterday aligning the bellhousing in the white car, stopping to take pics to post and checking all other combinations I had available.
I have been in contact with Browell Bellhousing for a while now. They make a lot of the really cool prostock clutch components and some tools. Since its for a 2.3 I had to have everything one-off and since I was doing the T5 in addition to the Doug Nash they had to make the T5 part.
Reasons:
I went over 500 plus passes and never had a transmission so much as start to whine. I'm extremely hard on them but never broke a single one. I broke 3 trans with the v8 clutch swap in a span of 10 drag strip passes. "Its a T5" and "you just got lucky before" are stupid and unacceptable things I heard from about 75% of the people I talked to. Clearly something changed and it wasn't my driving style. I noticed on the manual trans forums mentioned perfect alignment and pilot bearings were very important to high rpm gear changes.
The bell could be out of alignment for many reasons including marred dowels, the crank position being moved slightly due to an align bore, an aftermarket blowproof bell and stacking extra pieces in there like the adapter plate.
The old way:
The typical way to align a bellhousing was to mount a dial indicator on the back of the crank shaft, install the bell and turn the crank with the needle on the trans bore. I tried this yesterday and it was a nearly impossible task between keeping the dial exactly perpendicular and turning the engine and watching the results.
The current/right way:
This Browell tool has a hole machined for the rear crank snout and bolts to the flywheel via two flywheel bolts. It centers by fitting tight against the snout that sticks out to center the flywheel. All the surfaces have to be extremely clean and I ran a zip wheel over it to be sure there was no foreign material. Next install the bellhousing and bolt it tight. A black ring (pictured below) slides over the tool. If it fits into the bore for the transmission then the bell is a minimum .003" off center. Its a "Go No-Go" so there is no measurement to be had.
![]()
i157.photobucket.com/albums/t70/Matt-Culpepper/Project Bolton/trans/Bellhousing Alignment/9-25clutch5.jpg[/IMG]
Results:
I wasn't surprised at all that the lakewood bell was off by a mile but a little shocked that the factory 5.0 bell was off as well. I backed up and checked the factory 2.3 setup. I was amazed that it didnt fit either. All 3 setups were showing the bell too low by different amounts. I removed the hollow dowels because they had some marks and installed a nice clean perfect set. This allowed the factory 2.3 stuff to align although not perfectly.
I added lakewood offset dowels (part number 15960) to pull the bell to center. It took every last bit of this so I recommend the next dowels up if you have a lakewood bell. I basically installed them in their most straight up position to gain the greatest height change and that was enough to correct.
Hope this helps and if theres any questions or thoughts post them up.
Pics:
![]()
i157.photobucket.com/albums/t70/Matt-Culpepper/Project Bolton/trans/Bellhousing Alignment/9-25clutch.jpg[/img]
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i157.photobucket.com/albums/t70/Matt-Culpepper/Project Bolton/trans/Bellhousing Alignment/9-25clutch3.jpg[/img]
![]()
i157.photobucket.com/albums/t70/Matt-Culpepper/Project Bolton/trans/Bellhousing Alignment/9-25clutch8.jpg[/img]
![]()
i157.photobucket.com/albums/t70/Matt-Culpepper/Project Bolton/trans/Bellhousing Alignment/9-25clutch9.jpg[/img]
![]()
i157.photobucket.com/albums/t70/Matt-Culpepper/Project Bolton/trans/Bellhousing Alignment/9-25clutch12.jpg[/img]
![]()
i157.photobucket.com/albums/t70/Matt-Culpepper/Project Bolton/trans/Bellhousing Alignment/9-25clutch13.jpg[/img]
![]()
i157.photobucket.com/albums/t70/Matt-Culpepper/Project Bolton/trans/Bellhousing Alignment/9-25clutch20.jpg[/img]
![]()
i157.photobucket.com/albums/t70/Matt-Culpepper/Project Bolton/trans/Bellhousing Alignment/9-25clutch27.jpg[/img]
The other bells
![]()
i157.photobucket.com/albums/t70/Matt-Culpepper/Project Bolton/trans/Bellhousing Alignment/9-25clutch14.jpg[/img]
![]()
i157.photobucket.com/albums/t70/Matt-Culpepper/Project Bolton/trans/Bellhousing Alignment/9-25clutch15.jpg[/img]
![]()
i157.photobucket.com/albums/t70/Matt-Culpepper/Project Bolton/trans/Bellhousing Alignment/9-25clutch19.jpg[/img]
I have been in contact with Browell Bellhousing for a while now. They make a lot of the really cool prostock clutch components and some tools. Since its for a 2.3 I had to have everything one-off and since I was doing the T5 in addition to the Doug Nash they had to make the T5 part.
Reasons:
I went over 500 plus passes and never had a transmission so much as start to whine. I'm extremely hard on them but never broke a single one. I broke 3 trans with the v8 clutch swap in a span of 10 drag strip passes. "Its a T5" and "you just got lucky before" are stupid and unacceptable things I heard from about 75% of the people I talked to. Clearly something changed and it wasn't my driving style. I noticed on the manual trans forums mentioned perfect alignment and pilot bearings were very important to high rpm gear changes.
The bell could be out of alignment for many reasons including marred dowels, the crank position being moved slightly due to an align bore, an aftermarket blowproof bell and stacking extra pieces in there like the adapter plate.
The old way:
The typical way to align a bellhousing was to mount a dial indicator on the back of the crank shaft, install the bell and turn the crank with the needle on the trans bore. I tried this yesterday and it was a nearly impossible task between keeping the dial exactly perpendicular and turning the engine and watching the results.
The current/right way:
This Browell tool has a hole machined for the rear crank snout and bolts to the flywheel via two flywheel bolts. It centers by fitting tight against the snout that sticks out to center the flywheel. All the surfaces have to be extremely clean and I ran a zip wheel over it to be sure there was no foreign material. Next install the bellhousing and bolt it tight. A black ring (pictured below) slides over the tool. If it fits into the bore for the transmission then the bell is a minimum .003" off center. Its a "Go No-Go" so there is no measurement to be had.
Results:
I wasn't surprised at all that the lakewood bell was off by a mile but a little shocked that the factory 5.0 bell was off as well. I backed up and checked the factory 2.3 setup. I was amazed that it didnt fit either. All 3 setups were showing the bell too low by different amounts. I removed the hollow dowels because they had some marks and installed a nice clean perfect set. This allowed the factory 2.3 stuff to align although not perfectly.
I added lakewood offset dowels (part number 15960) to pull the bell to center. It took every last bit of this so I recommend the next dowels up if you have a lakewood bell. I basically installed them in their most straight up position to gain the greatest height change and that was enough to correct.
Hope this helps and if theres any questions or thoughts post them up.
Pics:
The other bells