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Ooh, that would be nice to use! I had a hard time getting my magnetic base to play nice with the flywheel bolts. After I did mine, I read that removing one bolt helps a lot. Wish I had thought of that at the time!
Thanks Larry, for clarifying that, I didn’t know. Not getting any hits on this.
I PM'ed Ducati Don on your behalf. Let's see if he responds. We can also do Tom Austin and Donny Brass. Donny was a frequent user of the tool in the earlier thread I linked for you.
I currently have Ducati Don's Browell Tool. I used it a couple of weeks ago to do my bellhousing alignment, and I've hung on to it a bit longer pending final assembly. That's just me being superstitious though--I'm done with the alignment check.
I told Don I'd be sending it back to him, but I can send it elsewhere with his blessing. I'll get in touch with him on that.
In the mean time, I'll provide a bit of feedback on what I thought of the tool. It is pretty handy, and will save some time (and maybe frustration) versus setting up a dial indicator. My main reason for wanting to bypass the dial indicator procedure was that I have a fresh engine with a new cam, and the valves already lashed. I put a couple of hand rotations on the engine checking the flywheel runout, but didn't want to do any more and displace the assembly grease. If I'd planned better, I'd have done all the flywheel and bellhousing checks before lashing the valves. So, lesson learned on that.
One drawback of the tool is that it's "go/no-go", so if you have to do any adjustment, it's kind of trial-and-error. With the bellhousing bolted to the block and torqued, I did not initially get a "go". With further investigation, I discovered that the alignment was good with only the four lower bellhousing bolts installed, but not with the upper two bolts. That was kind of a relief, as the bore runout seemed OK and I evidently didn't need to change the dowel pins. Investigating further, the bellhousing appeared slightly out-of-flat at the block mounting surface, and I was able to slide approximately a .010 feeler gauge between the bell and the block at the top. Installing the two top bolts would draw the top in, and that was pulling the bellhousing face out of parallel with the crank flange (i.e., causing a "face runout" issue). When that happened, the Browell tool ring would not slip into the register.
In another thread, I think MikeM suggested that a machine shop should be able to true up a bellhousing. I tried two machine shops in town, both with good reputations, and both run by gray haired guys, but both said they didn't have the fixtures to do the job. I thought of shimming the bellhousing, but initially that seemed kind of hokey. Finally, I cracked open the shop manual ('61 passenger car manual) and found that shimming at the bolt locations actually is what's called out to correct out-of-spec face runout. With a little more trial and error, the issue was corrected with a .010 shim at one hole, and a .008 shim at the other. That allowed the Browell ring to go all the way through.
Note, I also did consider replacing the bellhousing, but it's a 3779553 piece that (if I replaced it with the same thing) would have been a few hundred dollars at least. With a used bellhousing I also may have inherited some new problems. So, I stayed with the devil I knew. Note, I have used this bellhousing before with no issues that I could discern, albeit on a different engine.
Now, this raises a couple questions--what is the face runout spec on the Browell Tool, and did I well and truly correct the problem? Short answer, I think so, at least within factory tolerance. There is no published spec on face runout for this tool, although I believe the tool's bore runout spec is .003 in max. Based on the dimensions of the tool and the bellhousing register, making some assumptions and doing a little math, I believe the tool is very unlikely to tolerate a face runout of more than the factory spec (per the shop manual) of .010 in. However, I also believe that aftermarket scattershields and modern transmissions require a face runout spec more on the order of .002-.003 in. max. So, for that kind of precision it may be better to use a dial indicator and know for sure.
Bottom line, I'm glad I went through the exercise. 20 years ago I put a clutch in this car, bolted everything together, and didn't measure a thing. It all worked, but I feel better for measuring, balancing, etc. this time around.
Anyway, let me know if you still want the tool, and I'll coordinate with Don to get it going.
Just wanted to let everyone know I received the tool from David in excellent condition. The shop will be using it this week installing my new bellhousing, so should be done with it by this Sunday.
Yes, I think so, it proved to me AND the transmission shop that there was no alignment problem and, therefore, any transmission problems going forward must be a problem of the transmission rebuilder.
Browell Alignment Tool
