flywheels

I recently rebuilt a L134 for my 3A, and have now run into some snags. I had planned to use the flywheel that was on the old motor, so I had that turned and thought I was good to go. Last night I went to bolt it to the crank and found that the two tapered stud fasteners in the crank flange are much smaller than the ones needed for my flywheel. So I checked out the old motor...sure enough, it has much larger studs, which don't even seem to be tapered.

So I looked around my parts stash and found another flywheel. Same bolt pattern, same diameter friction surface, but smaller ring gear. I tried to bolt that one up and it works find with the tapered studs I have in my crank...but because of it having a smaller ring gear, there is no way my starter is going to work with that flywheel. What's the deal? Are there different flywheels for Lheads, or do I have an F head flywheel in the mix?? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I was so frustrated last night...it was supposed to be the night the motor when back in!

 

The flywheel and its matching crankshaft having the large straight dowel bolts are not from a CJ-3A
unless those dowels were reamed out larger at a later date.
Reaming the dowels out larger was a fairly common but usually that was an uneccisary service procedure.
This seemingly poor decision was made in an attempt to simply eliminate the need for a special tapered dowel reamer.

Seems that some late F-134 CJ's came from the factory with the large straight dowels. (approx. 1963 on ? )
134 flywheels after 3/17/1961 will accept the 9-1/4" Heavy Duty Auburn clutch.
If so equipped you can opt for the 9-1/4 " Auburn clutch but,
I would shy away from a 9-1/4" Borg Beck ( not factory) because of certain linkage concerns.

Early flywheels will only accept the 8-1/2" clutches unless machined for the larger clutch.
Due to the light pedal pressure 8-1/2" clutches are probably preferable for L heads anyway.

As you know the varios tooth count ring gears can be changed from one flywheel to the other.
You can easily put the standard CJ-3A / 97 tooth ring gear onto a later flywheel.

 

yeah, I tried putting a f-head flywheel and clutch on my l-head when I was putting it back together, and encountered the same problem. I had to use the orgional clutch and flywheel for it to work. Also the bell housings from an f-head shouldn't be able to fit a l-head, as I found out the hard way. i think I put my flywheel and clutch on and off 3 times trying to figure it out.

could put some carefully placed welds on the tapered studs to hold them in place while to toqure the flywheel to 45 ft-lbs (I think thats the #) 45 pounds isn't much. Light tacks should do just fine.

my studs were straight and I had no problems.

 

thanks for the replies. I actually ended up going a different route...I just had some tapered bushings made to fit the large flywheel holes, and match the taper of the smaller studs. Worked perfect, and was a cheap and easy fix. I really did not want to pull my crank again (it's already been out twice) and there was no way I was swapping to the other crank...this one had been cut, and new bearings to match.

Anyway, problem solved with a nice set of bushings. They pressed into my big flywheel holes, then matched the taper of the studs, so the flywheel went on great! Time to bolt up the trans/transer and get it all back in the jeep.

 

:easy rider: