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On 8/5/2011 9:08 PM, Charlie England wrote:
I was moving stuff around in the hangar today& picked up my salvage yard flex
plate. Found two 3/4" cracks: down from 9 o'clock& up from 3 o'clock holes in
the pic. Plate has never flown AFAIK.
The timing of this whole conversation is eerie. Literally 24 hours before it was first posted I had finally installed my starter and turned my engine over for the first time. When I did, I noticed visible runout in my flex plate ring gear (the whole plate had runout - I just noticed it because I was making sure my starter alignment was good).
I initially contacted Tracy to see if it was acceptable, but the number he pulled from thin air for what might be acceptable was a small fraction of what I had - mine was like 3/16". It was very noticeable.
SO, when the whole hoopla erupted on the list that sealed it for me and I decided to tear it out and put a new one in. I lucked across an eBay seller with THREE flex plates, and at only $40 each I just said "f--- it" and bought them all. I'm glad I did. One of the three had runout of its own - not as much as my first plate, but definitely not a choice part. I ended up installing the best of the three.
Close examination of these three seems to suggest that some stress during use caused the warp (heat?). They don't appear to be manufacturing tolerances. I understand Lynn's point about that and don't disagree, it's just that all of mine have visible indications of wear and tear to varying degrees. If somebody had a transmission seize or hydro-locked their engine, this part is right in the chain to take some abuse there... It might be worth establishing some guidelines for what's acceptable in this part.
Regards,
Chad
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