CraigWaterman11
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That's pretty funny Chris!.....on another note I did finish taking out the thrust bearing. I have a bunch of photos I will add maybe tomorrow for everyone.
Torque Tube and Bell housing removed..........
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CraigWaterman11
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Okay guys so here are some photos for you. I think it could help some of the guys who don't have the star bracket in the back of the bell housing as well. Let me lead with that so that you guys know what I am talking about. So the star bracket is behind the throw out bearing in the newer GS cars..... here is a photo from the service manual showing it:
The arrows are pointing at the star bracket. Now if you have a newer Mas. that's great because it will be easier for you to remove the thrust bearing, all you need to do is loosen those bolts on the star bracket and your thrust bearing will come out after you take care of the hydraulic lines and sensor wiring, if not and yours is like mine here are some pointers:
Here's a pic of what mine looks like:
Your going to start by loosing the unions up, the service manual doesn't have the greatest photos for this so I thought I would add them here:
That's a 13mm wrench, you can push them out of the way or do what I did and just take them out of the way altogether so as not to deform the hydraulic lines by bending them out of the holes:
Next you'll need to take off the F1 Sensor wire tie downs/clips.....it's 10mm, socket or stubby wrench:
You have two hex head bolts behind the thrust bearing that need to come out and you need to also remove the retaining thrust bearing pin bolts as well. The hex bolt and retaining pin bolt I am speaking about are marked with yellow paint in the photo, don't pay attention to the allen bolt yet. There are two more on the other side of the thrust bearing as well. Both are 13mm.
Now you might be wondering "why don't you just use an allen wrench or hex head and remove the base and it will all come out together?" Good question, the reason I believe they went with the star bracket design was so that you can do this and after it's out remove the thrust bearing pins. As it stands with this design you cannot do that. Look at the last photo above and you will notice the base is slightly clocked on the top of the allen bolt on the right side of the photo preventing you from taking it out or even loosening it up until you take it all apart and clock it back away from the hole. It's not just that one there's another allen bolt on the opposing side identical to it with the base clocked over it as well. So after you loosen the pin bolts, and the hex bolts, clock the base back away from the allen bolt holes, use a 5mm allen wrench and loosen all of them up. If your wondering what's holding it in before you loosen those allen bolts it's the F1 sensor magnet and pin shown here in a side view:
The photo above shows the pin/magnet coming down from the thrust bearing into the base of the F1 sensor. Additionally you can see the springs still in place because of it. You need to take out the 5mm allen bolts that hold it onto the thrust bearing base LEAVING the sensor attached like so:
The pin/magnet slides into the base plate only one way and you cannot get it disoriented:
Notice the flat head screw adjustment pointed towards the front of the thrust bearing on the magnet.....you want to make sure when you remove the dowel pin and take it off it's pointed in the same direction on the new thrust bearing......this is very important if you get it wrong it will throw the sensor off......
Here is where the metal dowel pin is at. You will need to press this out, you can also file it flat if need be and use a hammer and metal dowel, or small drill bit to knock it out (put the side that goes in the chuck towards the metal dowel pin, don't put the sharp side you drill with into the pin or you will flare the pin out making it bite into the metal. No you won't use that bit again to drill with but it will work fine if you don't have a press, or a metal dowel the same size to hammer it out with.) Be careful not to hammer so as to bend the F1 pin and magnet.
After you remove the dowel pin, use a cresent wrench or an appropriate sized wrench, and twist the magnet 180 degrees and it will come right out.
You will need to use a new dowel pin when you install it on the new thrust bearing........The service manual had bad diagrams of how to remove the magnet and pin so this should help some guys here......Remember that the flat head screw faces forward! That's it for now I don't have my F1 sensor it's in route so I won't put it together yet. I also would recommend you guys use the thrust bearing from Hill Engineering and not the OEM one they have a tendency at times to fail.
The arrows are pointing at the star bracket. Now if you have a newer Mas. that's great because it will be easier for you to remove the thrust bearing, all you need to do is loosen those bolts on the star bracket and your thrust bearing will come out after you take care of the hydraulic lines and sensor wiring, if not and yours is like mine here are some pointers:
Here's a pic of what mine looks like:
Your going to start by loosing the unions up, the service manual doesn't have the greatest photos for this so I thought I would add them here:
That's a 13mm wrench, you can push them out of the way or do what I did and just take them out of the way altogether so as not to deform the hydraulic lines by bending them out of the holes:
Next you'll need to take off the F1 Sensor wire tie downs/clips.....it's 10mm, socket or stubby wrench:
You have two hex head bolts behind the thrust bearing that need to come out and you need to also remove the retaining thrust bearing pin bolts as well. The hex bolt and retaining pin bolt I am speaking about are marked with yellow paint in the photo, don't pay attention to the allen bolt yet. There are two more on the other side of the thrust bearing as well. Both are 13mm.
Now you might be wondering "why don't you just use an allen wrench or hex head and remove the base and it will all come out together?" Good question, the reason I believe they went with the star bracket design was so that you can do this and after it's out remove the thrust bearing pins. As it stands with this design you cannot do that. Look at the last photo above and you will notice the base is slightly clocked on the top of the allen bolt on the right side of the photo preventing you from taking it out or even loosening it up until you take it all apart and clock it back away from the hole. It's not just that one there's another allen bolt on the opposing side identical to it with the base clocked over it as well. So after you loosen the pin bolts, and the hex bolts, clock the base back away from the allen bolt holes, use a 5mm allen wrench and loosen all of them up. If your wondering what's holding it in before you loosen those allen bolts it's the F1 sensor magnet and pin shown here in a side view:
The photo above shows the pin/magnet coming down from the thrust bearing into the base of the F1 sensor. Additionally you can see the springs still in place because of it. You need to take out the 5mm allen bolts that hold it onto the thrust bearing base LEAVING the sensor attached like so:
The pin/magnet slides into the base plate only one way and you cannot get it disoriented:
Notice the flat head screw adjustment pointed towards the front of the thrust bearing on the magnet.....you want to make sure when you remove the dowel pin and take it off it's pointed in the same direction on the new thrust bearing......this is very important if you get it wrong it will throw the sensor off......
Here is where the metal dowel pin is at. You will need to press this out, you can also file it flat if need be and use a hammer and metal dowel, or small drill bit to knock it out (put the side that goes in the chuck towards the metal dowel pin, don't put the sharp side you drill with into the pin or you will flare the pin out making it bite into the metal. No you won't use that bit again to drill with but it will work fine if you don't have a press, or a metal dowel the same size to hammer it out with.) Be careful not to hammer so as to bend the F1 pin and magnet.
After you remove the dowel pin, use a cresent wrench or an appropriate sized wrench, and twist the magnet 180 degrees and it will come right out.
You will need to use a new dowel pin when you install it on the new thrust bearing........The service manual had bad diagrams of how to remove the magnet and pin so this should help some guys here......Remember that the flat head screw faces forward! That's it for now I don't have my F1 sensor it's in route so I won't put it together yet. I also would recommend you guys use the thrust bearing from Hill Engineering and not the OEM one they have a tendency at times to fail.
CraigWaterman11
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Ask any questions you might have or if I left something out let me know............
CraigWaterman11
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Adam I'm not sure of the two service manuals or how to tell the difference. Honestly, I'm not even sure where I picked it up from now. It's a service manual for both the Spyder and Coupe. It's definitely been helpful in some areas, but when it came to removing the thrust bearing and F1 sensor/base magnet pin I had to slow down and walk through it because the manual had more blue prints for it than things you really could make out.
CraigWaterman11
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Clutch pack removal
Let's go onto the clutch pack removal as I just finished it today...... Anyone chime in when you see both the Pressure Plate and the Flywheel. The gear heads will notice it immediately.........
Here is the clutch pack below:
There are three sets of three Allen head bolts attaching the PP/Clutch pack to the flywheel. Number them mentally, then you are going to put "2", "5", and "8" by the corresponding allen bolts like I do in the photo below. These numbers are all in the center of the clusters of three. The photo above shows all the allen bolts in the PP, the one below also shows that you are going to remove all the other allen bolts but the ones you marked in the centers. There's a very specific reason for this which we are going to discuss in a minute but first let me cover something very specific about the marks:
You will see one straight line Yellow/Red mark in the photo above right beside the number "2". That is a factory Yellow mark I remarked with a red marker. It's there to show the Installer, though the clutch was factory balanced [notice the 7 shinny drill out marks to the left of number "5" in the photo above used to balance the clutch pack], the part of the clutch that's furthest Out of balance.
The mark on the PP is a 180 degrees off from a counter mark on the flywheel teeth shown below. I remarked the marks in Red paint marker.
Now I only remarked them to make sure I knew where they were at should I find I needed or could reuse something......that's not going to be possible for me. But you will also have marks identical to this on your new flywheel and clutch pack. They always will line up 180 degrees from each other. The science is that you are putting these the closest in balance for the car by putting them across from each other. Don't worry I know someone is going to bring up balancing the clutch and we will discuss that and the reasons why I don't believe it's necessary. Don't worry Mas. Enthusiast this discussion has to take place to do your own work. I will add it in a separate posting below. For now we are going back to numbers 2-5-8...
So you only have the three bolts left correct? Please note the clutch alignment tool already set for removal above.
There is a reason why you saved these three for last.. it's because when they balance the clutch on the car (if they do so.....you can look it up in the service manual).......these are the allen bolts the counter weights will go on.
Here's an interesting point. This is a factory clutch on an 02' Maserati Spyder, it originally had the single disc clutch pack, it was recalled and a double disc clutch pack was put in by the Dealership. When I removed the bolts that were supposed to have counter weights on them it didn't have any. Again we will talk below about this in a separate posting let me get back to the clutch pack.........
Now be careful if you actually do have counterweights on the clutch-pack on these bolts to MARK them to the corresponding hole/position on the clutch pack. This way if you find you want to reuse something or you don't need to replace the clutch you can put them back where they go. I use zip lock baggys when I take things apart and mark on the baggy with a permanent marker.
Here is your clutch pack......
Now if you want to take your clutch pack apart and remove the discs from the PP there are 3 8mm bolts to do so on the clutch pack. It's the only ones left you will be able to spot them easily. ....Here's one, they go all the way through the clutch pack bottom part of the photo....
After taking the clutch discs out I wanted to take measurements on the disc sizes checking how far gone they are..If IIRC 9mm is a new clutch and 4.5mm is to the rivets, another Poster on ML named Larry gave me the data I haven't verified it yet but I think it's accurate....The discs seemed to have enough distance from the rivets and here's their measurements......
So I have saved the best for last..............Here is what the flywheel and the inside of the pressure plate looked like (you have to remove the clutch discs to check the inside part of the PP)......
Flywheel:
Inside PP:
Let's go onto the clutch pack removal as I just finished it today...... Anyone chime in when you see both the Pressure Plate and the Flywheel. The gear heads will notice it immediately.........
Here is the clutch pack below:
There are three sets of three Allen head bolts attaching the PP/Clutch pack to the flywheel. Number them mentally, then you are going to put "2", "5", and "8" by the corresponding allen bolts like I do in the photo below. These numbers are all in the center of the clusters of three. The photo above shows all the allen bolts in the PP, the one below also shows that you are going to remove all the other allen bolts but the ones you marked in the centers. There's a very specific reason for this which we are going to discuss in a minute but first let me cover something very specific about the marks:
You will see one straight line Yellow/Red mark in the photo above right beside the number "2". That is a factory Yellow mark I remarked with a red marker. It's there to show the Installer, though the clutch was factory balanced [notice the 7 shinny drill out marks to the left of number "5" in the photo above used to balance the clutch pack], the part of the clutch that's furthest Out of balance.
The mark on the PP is a 180 degrees off from a counter mark on the flywheel teeth shown below. I remarked the marks in Red paint marker.
Now I only remarked them to make sure I knew where they were at should I find I needed or could reuse something......that's not going to be possible for me. But you will also have marks identical to this on your new flywheel and clutch pack. They always will line up 180 degrees from each other. The science is that you are putting these the closest in balance for the car by putting them across from each other. Don't worry I know someone is going to bring up balancing the clutch and we will discuss that and the reasons why I don't believe it's necessary. Don't worry Mas. Enthusiast this discussion has to take place to do your own work. I will add it in a separate posting below. For now we are going back to numbers 2-5-8...
So you only have the three bolts left correct? Please note the clutch alignment tool already set for removal above.
There is a reason why you saved these three for last.. it's because when they balance the clutch on the car (if they do so.....you can look it up in the service manual).......these are the allen bolts the counter weights will go on.
Here's an interesting point. This is a factory clutch on an 02' Maserati Spyder, it originally had the single disc clutch pack, it was recalled and a double disc clutch pack was put in by the Dealership. When I removed the bolts that were supposed to have counter weights on them it didn't have any. Again we will talk below about this in a separate posting let me get back to the clutch pack.........
Now be careful if you actually do have counterweights on the clutch-pack on these bolts to MARK them to the corresponding hole/position on the clutch pack. This way if you find you want to reuse something or you don't need to replace the clutch you can put them back where they go. I use zip lock baggys when I take things apart and mark on the baggy with a permanent marker.
Here is your clutch pack......
Now if you want to take your clutch pack apart and remove the discs from the PP there are 3 8mm bolts to do so on the clutch pack. It's the only ones left you will be able to spot them easily. ....Here's one, they go all the way through the clutch pack bottom part of the photo....
After taking the clutch discs out I wanted to take measurements on the disc sizes checking how far gone they are..If IIRC 9mm is a new clutch and 4.5mm is to the rivets, another Poster on ML named Larry gave me the data I haven't verified it yet but I think it's accurate....The discs seemed to have enough distance from the rivets and here's their measurements......
So I have saved the best for last..............Here is what the flywheel and the inside of the pressure plate looked like (you have to remove the clutch discs to check the inside part of the PP)......
Flywheel:
Inside PP:
CraigWaterman11
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2b1ask1............you are correct....It's heat discoloration....when you get a chance google search "what does a burnt Pressure Plate look like" or "what does a burnt Fly Wheel look like" then compare the photos to what you see above. I think I know exactly what caused it and you'll never guess who the answer came from........my wife. Yep from the mouths of infants.......
CraigWaterman11
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Conaero I could get the clutch plate refurbished with friction discs, but the Pressure Plate and fly wheel I'm not going to chance. Since you cannot purchase a PP by itself and have to order an entire clutch pack it wouldn't be worth refurbishing the clutch plate. What you see on my PP and fly wheel is common with cars that do frequent burn-outs and hard starts. It's also common for 4 wheel drive Rock crawlers, and such. That's not where mine came from and I will explain later. But once you burn up a PP or flywheel like this it's hard to tell whether it's warped or has developed heat stress cracks under what you see. I'm sure I could have resurfaced the fly wheel but it doesn't mean something else couldn't resurfaced later on because of this. As far as that PP, it's done when there's that many hot spots on it I'm sure it's warped, and who knows what would happen if you machined it down, it probably would never be right. I have a new fly wheel already in route from eurospares, and a new F1 sensor. I'm back to finding a clutch pack I feel comfortable with.
CraigWaterman11
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Conaero I want to mention this because we just spoke above about it. So for whatever reason when I use my credit card over there for EuroSpares everyone thinks my credit card was stolen. They did it with the F1 sensor and they did it again with the flywheel. It's a bit frustrating but I'm kind of glad they did because I decided to take my fly wheel off and take a closer look. I'm pretty certain that with the material they have on this fly wheel and it's thickness I didn't burn it up or put stress cracks in it. I decided to take it to a local machine shop to second what I was thinking.......so I just dropped it off. They stated it was good to go. They are going to machine it and hot tank it.....It only cost me $50 which of course I was happy about....Here's a side photo of the FlyWheel...
voicey
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I've been following this thread with interest - nice work. One note of caution - I would check the flywheel specs. Ferrari flywheels have a small taper ground into them and a common mistake is to machine them flat. I don't know if this applies with Maserati but it is worth checking before ruining a new clutch.
Good luck!
Good luck!
CraigWaterman11
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Voicey thank you for that question, it was an excellent one and I forgot to add it. That was one of the things the machine shop asked and checked out when I brought it to him. Here is a quote from ECS of Virginia he's a Maserati/Ferrari Master Mechanic on the ML site, this quote was in reference to replacing a clutch on a Maserati 4200/GS
"Agreed on the flywheel IS NOT suppose to be tapered, it happens when the flywheel gets hot. It is critical to correct the taper and make the surface square again. The tapering means that the outer edges have curled inwards. It will affect clutch wear and shift performance especially at high RPM. This is why the flywheel should be resurfaced or replaced."
Speaking of fly wheel specs something else that came up that I forgot about and a Ferrari Tech (Jason from Enzo in Atlanta, GA) brought to my attention, don't forget to machine down where the PP sits the same distance as the surface of the flywheel. If you do it could cause problems it will lessen the clamping force of the PP when the Thrust bearing engages because it's .010-.015 further away from where it suppose to sit.
"Agreed on the flywheel IS NOT suppose to be tapered, it happens when the flywheel gets hot. It is critical to correct the taper and make the surface square again. The tapering means that the outer edges have curled inwards. It will affect clutch wear and shift performance especially at high RPM. This is why the flywheel should be resurfaced or replaced."
Speaking of fly wheel specs something else that came up that I forgot about and a Ferrari Tech (Jason from Enzo in Atlanta, GA) brought to my attention, don't forget to machine down where the PP sits the same distance as the surface of the flywheel. If you do it could cause problems it will lessen the clamping force of the PP when the Thrust bearing engages because it's .010-.015 further away from where it suppose to sit.
boomerang
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That is exactly what i would want to bring up, very important.
Question though: because of this, every part moves forward including the thrust bearing.
Won't this cause new problems regarding the clutch sensor?
Interesting topic.
If you do not have to take too much material off and when you could reuse the pressure plate, you would not have to worry about balancing issues i think.
My GS got a complete set including the flywheel, wich made it nesessary to balance with the SD2 tester.
There really was some unbalance to equalize indeed!
A lot of work all in all, the exhaust had to be mounted back to be able to rev the engine during the balancing session.
CraigWaterman11
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Boomerang, excellent questions, I was just talking about clutch balancing as well on the other forum.
So actually there's specs for our flywheel in how much they can be machined down.....I think the most is .039 but don't quote me on that. I do know that you can safely take a fly wheel down two times before it's sketchy. That's two times is IF they stay within the normal .010-.015 machining of a flywheel and also if it's not warped or pressure cracks through-out like I though mine was before I took it off the car. I am positive about machining it down at most twice....because it was mentioned by one of the Master Mas. Techs on the U.S. forum in another discussion.
It will not cause problems with the F1 sensor, we will just call it the Thrust bearing sensor because honestly that's what it is. It's a sensor set up to tell the TCU where the thrust bearing is as it sits in the rail. It's also why the car cannot detect when the PP fingers collapse or a clutch spring lets go. There aren't any other sensors or optics in the bell housing besides this one. So if you look at the side view of the thrust bearing and sensor you will see that the bearing and sensor are attached together the thrust bearing rides in a rail, so it will not throw it off from the FlyWheel being machined down within specs.
Here is my fly wheel I picked up today with the part where the PP attaches machined the same as the friction surface:
total cost ws $50 USD.
Actually here is the total cost for all the parts to replace the clutch I've paid:
Clutch Pack (Comes with Discs and PP) $1110.00
Hill Engineering Thrust bearing $564.19
Pilot/Spigot bearing $30.00
Fly wheel $50.00
F1 sensor $230.00
Total USD $1984.19
So actually there's specs for our flywheel in how much they can be machined down.....I think the most is .039 but don't quote me on that. I do know that you can safely take a fly wheel down two times before it's sketchy. That's two times is IF they stay within the normal .010-.015 machining of a flywheel and also if it's not warped or pressure cracks through-out like I though mine was before I took it off the car. I am positive about machining it down at most twice....because it was mentioned by one of the Master Mas. Techs on the U.S. forum in another discussion.
It will not cause problems with the F1 sensor, we will just call it the Thrust bearing sensor because honestly that's what it is. It's a sensor set up to tell the TCU where the thrust bearing is as it sits in the rail. It's also why the car cannot detect when the PP fingers collapse or a clutch spring lets go. There aren't any other sensors or optics in the bell housing besides this one. So if you look at the side view of the thrust bearing and sensor you will see that the bearing and sensor are attached together the thrust bearing rides in a rail, so it will not throw it off from the FlyWheel being machined down within specs.
Here is my fly wheel I picked up today with the part where the PP attaches machined the same as the friction surface:
total cost ws $50 USD.
Actually here is the total cost for all the parts to replace the clutch I've paid:
Clutch Pack (Comes with Discs and PP) $1110.00
Hill Engineering Thrust bearing $564.19
Pilot/Spigot bearing $30.00
Fly wheel $50.00
F1 sensor $230.00
Total USD $1984.19
CraigWaterman11
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Clutch balancing
Boomerang I am really glad you brought this up as well, it's important so here's my thoughts............
Many other high performance car's clutches/flywheels aren't balanced the way Maserati does it when the motor is ALREADY assembled. Some perfectly balanced race engines have the crank/pistons, etc with the flywheel and clutch dynamic balanced together BEFORE they assemble the motor. Mas. tried to get around this by doing it on the car. This proves the rotating assembly was balanced to itself, and that the plate/flywheel are being neutrally balanced to the rotating assembly.
My honest opinion is this, and I'm only going to tell you something I'm going to do, not tell you to do something I wouldn't do.
You can take the flywheel and clutch pack to a machine shop that specializes in clutches or balancing and have them neutrally balanced together as a unit instead of doing it on the car. They were already balanced individually BUT you have to be-careful not to get into tolerance stacking.
When individual things are balanced they are balanced with-in certain tolerances. However, when you put two to three things that's been balanced individually together those individual tolerances stack up. What initially wasn't out of tolerance can be out of tolerance by stacking for the car's application.
Now I know that there are shops that simply put the most out of balance marks 180 degrees apart from each other, like in my car. This is the reason, I didn't find any counter balance weights on my clutch pack when I removed it. The dealership took it in under compliance to switch the single plate to a double plate clutch under the first owner. To be honest I really believe you can get away with it at times and probably not notice a thing. They were individually balanced at the factory, that's why you have the drill marks on the PP, and you have marks on both the flywheel and clutch pack to tell you where the most out of balanced position is within the balanced tolerances.
The crank and pistons are already balanced in the engine, it was balanced separately. Then, they balanced the flywheel and clutch pack to a motor already balanced. I would not be convinced that balancing these together off the car wouldn't be more than sufficient at any RPM range for our cars.
So again, I don't believe you have to balance these on the car. The rotating assembly was balanced to itself, so by balancing the clutch pack/fly wheel together, or neutral balancing them I believe it will be more than sufficient, and you will not need an SD2/3 Leo system, glue, reflection tape, etc.......(see service manual).
It cost about or less than $100 USD to dynamic balance these together in the U.S. I should be receiving the clutch within a week and this is what I plan to do.
Boomerang I am really glad you brought this up as well, it's important so here's my thoughts............
Many other high performance car's clutches/flywheels aren't balanced the way Maserati does it when the motor is ALREADY assembled. Some perfectly balanced race engines have the crank/pistons, etc with the flywheel and clutch dynamic balanced together BEFORE they assemble the motor. Mas. tried to get around this by doing it on the car. This proves the rotating assembly was balanced to itself, and that the plate/flywheel are being neutrally balanced to the rotating assembly.
My honest opinion is this, and I'm only going to tell you something I'm going to do, not tell you to do something I wouldn't do.
You can take the flywheel and clutch pack to a machine shop that specializes in clutches or balancing and have them neutrally balanced together as a unit instead of doing it on the car. They were already balanced individually BUT you have to be-careful not to get into tolerance stacking.
When individual things are balanced they are balanced with-in certain tolerances. However, when you put two to three things that's been balanced individually together those individual tolerances stack up. What initially wasn't out of tolerance can be out of tolerance by stacking for the car's application.
Now I know that there are shops that simply put the most out of balance marks 180 degrees apart from each other, like in my car. This is the reason, I didn't find any counter balance weights on my clutch pack when I removed it. The dealership took it in under compliance to switch the single plate to a double plate clutch under the first owner. To be honest I really believe you can get away with it at times and probably not notice a thing. They were individually balanced at the factory, that's why you have the drill marks on the PP, and you have marks on both the flywheel and clutch pack to tell you where the most out of balanced position is within the balanced tolerances.
The crank and pistons are already balanced in the engine, it was balanced separately. Then, they balanced the flywheel and clutch pack to a motor already balanced. I would not be convinced that balancing these together off the car wouldn't be more than sufficient at any RPM range for our cars.
So again, I don't believe you have to balance these on the car. The rotating assembly was balanced to itself, so by balancing the clutch pack/fly wheel together, or neutral balancing them I believe it will be more than sufficient, and you will not need an SD2/3 Leo system, glue, reflection tape, etc.......(see service manual).
It cost about or less than $100 USD to dynamic balance these together in the U.S. I should be receiving the clutch within a week and this is what I plan to do.
2b1ask1
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Craig; the Maserati mechanic told me that they don't use the SD2 to balance but instead they run the car with the driver's door open and look at the bottom end of the door for vibration, they rearly need to balance but if they do they work on it till the door stops shaking and they know it is right! Old fassionex technique that works...
boomerang
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That is the way i would act indeed Craig; just bring the flywheel/presure plate combination to a good balancing firm and everything will be ok.
My car had some vibrations before we had to exchange the clutch.
The dealer was certain that he could get rid of the vibrations by just doing his very best, balancing the new clutch/flywheel.
With no succes however. (still; there wás some unbalance in the new mounted parts, wich he minimized beyond factory specs)
Vibrations and Maserati.....
When i had the 3200GTA, i bothered very much to get rid of torquetube vibrations.
After visiting a dealer, who tried to balance the tube under the car with the help of the SD2 tester, i decided to buy a computer balancing system myself, wich i currently use to balance tubes on a self made bench.
The SD2 tester is not fit for this kind of work in my opinion.
On top of that, the mechanic did not want to listen, when i sayd that a real good, clean measurement, could only be obtained with both the halfshafts OFF the differential.
During the measurement influences of the brakes/handbreak could be felt and they ruined every next attempt.
i later succesfully did the job at the car with my own equipment and the halfshafts off.
Gathering quite some experiences balancing rotating parts at a car and now on the bench, i must say that i am stunned to see what a mass of 5 gramm can do to to the wellbeing of the linked parts.
As you can see in the picture, i balanced a tube complete with its differential.
Even linked to the quite heavy differential, the influence of 5 gramm unbalance at the tube, can be felt at the diff very well!
Therefore i can not understand why a professional would balance a rotating part, by observing and interpreting a vibrating door....
On the other hand, torquetube vibrations (where allmost every 4200 suffers from) is way more noticable then a tiny bit of unbalance at engine side.
That torque tube...that is the real culprit of the 4200 and cause of the still occuring 2900rpm vibration in my car.
To be honest; i drive the car very often with low rpms high gear.
Only in those circumstances the vibration comes forward.
When the car is used where it is intended for, you will not notice these vibrations.
The dealer states that these virbrations are part of these cars concept and absolutely normal.
Maybe so, but i hate it.
My car had some vibrations before we had to exchange the clutch.
The dealer was certain that he could get rid of the vibrations by just doing his very best, balancing the new clutch/flywheel.
With no succes however. (still; there wás some unbalance in the new mounted parts, wich he minimized beyond factory specs)
Vibrations and Maserati.....
When i had the 3200GTA, i bothered very much to get rid of torquetube vibrations.
After visiting a dealer, who tried to balance the tube under the car with the help of the SD2 tester, i decided to buy a computer balancing system myself, wich i currently use to balance tubes on a self made bench.
The SD2 tester is not fit for this kind of work in my opinion.
On top of that, the mechanic did not want to listen, when i sayd that a real good, clean measurement, could only be obtained with both the halfshafts OFF the differential.
During the measurement influences of the brakes/handbreak could be felt and they ruined every next attempt.
i later succesfully did the job at the car with my own equipment and the halfshafts off.
Gathering quite some experiences balancing rotating parts at a car and now on the bench, i must say that i am stunned to see what a mass of 5 gramm can do to to the wellbeing of the linked parts.
As you can see in the picture, i balanced a tube complete with its differential.
Even linked to the quite heavy differential, the influence of 5 gramm unbalance at the tube, can be felt at the diff very well!
Therefore i can not understand why a professional would balance a rotating part, by observing and interpreting a vibrating door....
On the other hand, torquetube vibrations (where allmost every 4200 suffers from) is way more noticable then a tiny bit of unbalance at engine side.
That torque tube...that is the real culprit of the 4200 and cause of the still occuring 2900rpm vibration in my car.
To be honest; i drive the car very often with low rpms high gear.
Only in those circumstances the vibration comes forward.
When the car is used where it is intended for, you will not notice these vibrations.
The dealer states that these virbrations are part of these cars concept and absolutely normal.
Maybe so, but i hate it.
CraigWaterman11
Sponsor
- Messages
- 762
Boomerang man that's really nice! I really wish you were close by me. It's funny that you mentioned the torque tube because I could of sworn when it was off and I spun it by hand I heard and saw it slightly out of balance, of course what can you really catch by eye or hearing, right? But I was like you could hear it lope as it spun. I totally get what your saying about the door thing to. I don't see why someone would do it that way, but from what I can tell I don't think they are doing it at all. If the torque tube is out like that who would really notice that vibration anyway? If it's already vibrating they aren't going to notice this on top of it.
It's really nice to have your own balance equipment. Additionally, I cannot remember the centripetal force compounding chart for weights but your correct about gram weight, or any weight and it's effects. Here is a nice article on it, they speak about the centripetal force a couple paragraphs down.
http://johnmaherracing.com/2013/01/project-2110-part-4-dynamic-balancing/
By the way since you are into balancing, how did you balance your torque tube? Where did you attach the weights? It spins in the tube itself so? I have another machine shop that specializes in drive shaft balancing. When I replaced my carrier bearing in my split drive shaft truck I took it to them to balance both parts and they did an excellent job but that's a big difference from a torque tube. I don't mind taking it to them if I can tell them where the weights would be best at. The truck was smooth as butter when they balanced it whereas before you could feel right under the truck vibrating like crazy. It's a lifted Dodge Ram 1500 Quad Cab 8' foot bed on 35" tires, that 25' long truck did not need anything further out of balance!
Maybe one other question again since this is a field you appreciate, I didn't have a warm reception with this question because people took it to the extreme of thinking I was talking about an all aluminum fly wheel in the Mas. What about shaving the flywheel a bit? So here are the weights, the flywheel just by itself weighs 24 lbs, and the clutch pack on top of that weighs 16 lbs so that's a mass of 40 lbs before reaching the torque tube or gear box. Now again I want to reiterate we aren't racing, I don't want an all aluminum fly wheel on the car we drive on the street. Terrible would be an understatement there. But maybe if we shaved it a bit? One Ferrari tech told me no because we aren't sure if it would mess with the F1 system. But as we already know the only sensor in the Bell housing is the Thrust position sensor. If that cannot pick up PP fingers collapsed or clutch springs broken, how is it going to tell we slightly lightened the fly wheel? I mean sure the car won't click into gear in the above situations but there's also no "CC" lights on the dash which is why it can be so frustrating to diagnose if the clutch springs break, or PP fingers collapse. Your thoughts? Hopefully I'm not changing the whole thread by bringing these questions up.
It's really nice to have your own balance equipment. Additionally, I cannot remember the centripetal force compounding chart for weights but your correct about gram weight, or any weight and it's effects. Here is a nice article on it, they speak about the centripetal force a couple paragraphs down.
http://johnmaherracing.com/2013/01/project-2110-part-4-dynamic-balancing/
By the way since you are into balancing, how did you balance your torque tube? Where did you attach the weights? It spins in the tube itself so? I have another machine shop that specializes in drive shaft balancing. When I replaced my carrier bearing in my split drive shaft truck I took it to them to balance both parts and they did an excellent job but that's a big difference from a torque tube. I don't mind taking it to them if I can tell them where the weights would be best at. The truck was smooth as butter when they balanced it whereas before you could feel right under the truck vibrating like crazy. It's a lifted Dodge Ram 1500 Quad Cab 8' foot bed on 35" tires, that 25' long truck did not need anything further out of balance!
Maybe one other question again since this is a field you appreciate, I didn't have a warm reception with this question because people took it to the extreme of thinking I was talking about an all aluminum fly wheel in the Mas. What about shaving the flywheel a bit? So here are the weights, the flywheel just by itself weighs 24 lbs, and the clutch pack on top of that weighs 16 lbs so that's a mass of 40 lbs before reaching the torque tube or gear box. Now again I want to reiterate we aren't racing, I don't want an all aluminum fly wheel on the car we drive on the street. Terrible would be an understatement there. But maybe if we shaved it a bit? One Ferrari tech told me no because we aren't sure if it would mess with the F1 system. But as we already know the only sensor in the Bell housing is the Thrust position sensor. If that cannot pick up PP fingers collapsed or clutch springs broken, how is it going to tell we slightly lightened the fly wheel? I mean sure the car won't click into gear in the above situations but there's also no "CC" lights on the dash which is why it can be so frustrating to diagnose if the clutch springs break, or PP fingers collapse. Your thoughts? Hopefully I'm not changing the whole thread by bringing these questions up.
boomerang
Member
- Messages
- 412
Graig,
Balancing the inner shaft of the torque tube is of no use.
Problem with the inner shaft is, that it tends to bend between it supporting bearings, causing vibrations.
After mounting a very low milage complete tube ( david Askew) i examined the old shaft and found that it had quite some run out.
Building the contactless TB's for the 3200GT, brought me in contact with some Maserati dealers in Holland and Germany.
They state that only a brand new tube solves the problem.......for the time being.
In the meantime i made some progress finding a firm that is able to build a carbonfibre shaft.
Most bothering issue at this moment is finding the correct splined bushes for linking the carbontube to the gearbox and bellhousing shafts.
If this comes to a positive end, vibrations would be gone, three bearings could be deleted, drivetrain losses would be reduced and overall performance would benefit.
I think this would help you more then taking of some weight form the flywheel!
Personally i am afraid to take off material, because i have seen some desasters there. ( not Maserati though)
Balancing the inner shaft of the torque tube is of no use.
Problem with the inner shaft is, that it tends to bend between it supporting bearings, causing vibrations.
After mounting a very low milage complete tube ( david Askew) i examined the old shaft and found that it had quite some run out.
Building the contactless TB's for the 3200GT, brought me in contact with some Maserati dealers in Holland and Germany.
They state that only a brand new tube solves the problem.......for the time being.
In the meantime i made some progress finding a firm that is able to build a carbonfibre shaft.
Most bothering issue at this moment is finding the correct splined bushes for linking the carbontube to the gearbox and bellhousing shafts.
If this comes to a positive end, vibrations would be gone, three bearings could be deleted, drivetrain losses would be reduced and overall performance would benefit.
I think this would help you more then taking of some weight form the flywheel!
Personally i am afraid to take off material, because i have seen some desasters there. ( not Maserati though)