I ordered some ARP fly wheel bolts from a very well known Ford Tuner for my ST170, whilst installing my aluminium fly this afternoon i managed to strip 2 of the 6 bolts out of the crank when tourqeing them up to 90ftlb. I removed the bolts and noticed that they were about 10mm shorter than the ford bolts i removed. Turns out they sent me Zetec E bolts which were wrong. I rang them because it was not clear in the catalouge which i needed. They told me Zetec E and sent me them. Bit late for that now, i should have checked really.
How can i salvage this, the engine is in the car with the box removed. Basically because the bolts were so short they only stripped out the first 4 threads (about 5mm) is it worth getting standard bolts from ford tomorrow and trying to tourqe them up with the 10mm of thread that is left and putting some loctight on em, or is it fucked 4 of the 6 bolt holes are fine, just 2 have the first 5mm stripped.
I have tapped the hole and cleaned the threads so what is left is fine.
I changed the fly myself to save £300 labour cost but this could cost me an engine

 

If it ws mine i'd risk it 4 of of 6 aint too bad, but if it does all go wrong you could end up with a big fly wheel shaped hole in your gear box, i don't know how hard it would be to drill and put an insert in the crank, Mite be an idea to contact an engine builder to see what they say.

 

I spoke to Ford today and they have 6 ST170 fly wheels bolts i can have tomorrow. I suppose i aint got nothing to lose, i might as well try it, just concerned my Stage 3 clutchmasters kevlar clutch may be a bit strong

 

Gutted mate i hope you can get it sorted.

 

The 2.0 Zetec ones are FAR too short for the ST170 setup.

I was mislead on this too and i only found out when i went to put my ARP flywheel bolts in, fortunately i realised that 4mm of thread engagement was too little before i went any further and put a new set of ST170 flywheel bolts in.

You *might* get away with it if you use loctite threadlock with the new ST170 bolts, sadly i can't make any promises as i've never tried!

 

helicoils won't help will they?

 

I have some loctite thread lock luckily so i will give it a go and hope it holds out. Im cursing myself for such a stupid mistake.
Cheers for the help guys. To helicoil it properly would mean removing the crank which is THE last resort

 

To be honest, if the crank is going to come out, i wouldn't bother trying to repair it, i'd just get a good second hand one on standard sizes.

See how it goes, you'll have full thread engagement on 4 flywheel bolts and theoretically over 50% on the other 2. So as long as you use plenty of threadlock you *might* get away with it...

 

Dont suppose you know of anyone with a spare ST170 crank lying around just incase. I was not even going to bother looking for just a crank, i was going to swap out the whole bottom end or engine if it goes tits up.
Cheers for your help Will, love ya motor by the way, always looking for updates on your thread

 

are the bolts that are partly stripped next to each other or opposite each other?? be better if they were opposite but i you will get away with it no problem IMO

 

I was tightening the bolts in a diagonal sequence to help seat the fly wheel perfectly so the 2 stripped threads are indeed opposite eachother, luckily. Maybe im worrying too much, my bolts will be at ford at 10am tomoz morning so i will update this thread tomoz to let you know how i got on.
cheers doods

 

I've got a crank out of my old supercharged ST170 engine. To be honest, i've not found any differences between the ST170 and the standard 2.0 Zetec E/R, so shouldn't be a nightmare to find one.

Updates should be starting on mine again in the near future - i needed a bit of a break from it

 

if your stuck.
http://www.turbosport.co.uk/showthread.php?t=148957

 

it wont be pretty if the flywheel makes a break for freedom!!but having said that i think it will be fine!!have you tried recutting the thread,or has it been proper stripped?

 

i was just going to say that i would try it

 

If it has only been stripped using the shorter bolts, then the longer bolts will grab on the new thread.

Personally, I wouldn't torque the stripped bolts upto the standard 70 lb/ft incase they strip again, 50 lb/ft with plenty of studlock/threadlock (the semi-permanant stuff) and you should be fine. Use locktite on the other bolts and torque them upto the manufacturers sped (70 lb/ft?) and you won't go far wrong there

 

TaDA!!!!! Cheers guys, i loctite that shit right in there, it all tourqed up fine on the factoy bolts, shame i did not get to fit the ARP's as originally intended.
and just to prove everything else when fine.
Oh and yes that is a stack of trays under the jack supporting the engine!! DIY bodge fantastic


Clutch in


Gearbox ready to rock

Note to self, dont do this on your own again


Almost there

And finally in

I have done 50miles and all is good, need to run the Kevlar clutch in for 500miles so not given it much yet but the car feels SO eager to go. Clutch pedal is only slightly heavier and the stage 3 clutch is fine in traffic. There is a tiny and i mean tiny amount of chatter, only in neutral when costing down or idling, and it is only now and again. The fly is 12.5lb so its half weight, i think any lighter and it would have chattered like a B-atch!! The old duel mass fly was well and truely fuckkered
Till next time

VERY happy.

 

glad we could ALL help mate

 

Don't think I'd of risked it myself personally!

Anyway - crank shouldn't have to come out to be helicoiled should it?

 

Looks like you got away with it then!! First sign of any more trouble - webuyanycar.com the bitch

 

Nice one
i would of risked it as well
you not gonna be the last person to be given the wrong bolts and strip the thread

 

I'm not sure I would have risked it tbh, the damage a flywheel can do when it parts company from the crank is unreal. It would always be in the back of my mind. Did all the correct lenght bolts torque up successfully?

 

I don't think there's much chance of it parting company to be honest...

He's got 4 bolts, fully torqued, with loctite on full engagement.

He's also go 2 bolts, torqued, with loctite on with over 60% engagement.

It's not like the car is doing 10,000rpm drag runs or repeated launches with ridiculous power

 

I don't think there's much chance of it parting company to be honest...

He's got 4 bolts, fully torqued, with loctite on with full engagement.

He's also got 2 bolts, torqued, with loctite on with over 60% engagement.

It's not like the car is doing 10,000rpm drag runs or repeated launches with ridiculous power

 

I managed to get full standard tourque values on all of the bolts, even the ones with the first 4 thread missing. The fly will never have to come out again now and TBH i dont think i could remove it if i wanted to with the amount of loctite i used
As Will said the car will never be running silly power. Im happy with my typhoon, flywheel, bluefin, and mongoose cat back. The flywheel might have played on my mind if i had not pulled out from purchasing a jackson racing supercharger kit 2 weeks ago the missus said NO was a great price too

 

Let me know how you get on with that flywheel mate. How much did it set you back if you don't mind me asking?

 

The Clutchmasters Stage III kit from CFM came with 12.5lb Aluminium fly, Kevlar clutch, pressure plate, OEM slave cylinder and clutch alignment tool.
I paid $1016 which is around £640, that included delivery, i did get stung by customs, i had to pay an addition £94 in import duty. Anyone else might have got away with it.
CFM were brilliant to deal with, answered all my queries almost straight away. Would use them again.
I think im going to like the lightened fly wheel , i have a ported TB so the throttle is very sensitive anyway but even when taking it easy during the runing in period i can feel its going to spin up very fast in 1st and 2nd
Feels like a new car as i gave it a full service, engine oil, gearbox oil, 5.1 dot brake fluid, plugs, filters the lot.

 

helicoils - what are these?

and wahst the advantage of a lightened flywheel?
to allow the engine to speed up quicker due to less weight to increase the speed of?

 

I'm sure I'd have used Helicoils. We used to have a guy in our area that was mobile, something like that would have been the best bet.

jammerrs - Helicoils are essentially repaired threads. You drill the fucked thread out, tap it to a bigger size and wind in a new steel coil, which replaced the thread. Very neat. They come as a kit.

Lightweight flywheels make the engine feel a little more lively, the revs can build quicker, but similarly they can fall faster too, so you really need to shift faster or you'll be out of the powerband. Thats a very broad overview anyway.

 

at least 1 person knows how its done properly....

 

Christian and Becky - thanks

 

The only problem with helicoils in this scenario is that if they aren't installed 100% correctly, then the situation is made worse.

Also - if they aren't installed correctly then you're into very big problems most probably resulting in a new crank!

Yes, i'm in full agreement that they are the 'correct solution' and i myself would indeed have recommended it be done if it had been any more 4 threads that had been damaged. However, in my experience, with the remaining thread engagement that was possible and the load spreading available, what has been done is an acceptable solution.

 

A lightened flywheel does not increase the engines power but the reduced mass will mean it spins up faster. Depending on how much weight is removed from the fly, its like removing 300kg of the cars weight in 1st gear, this ratio declines as you go up the gears. It will be hardly noticable at all in 4th 5th and 6th. Basically the car will accelerate much much quicker in 1st 2nd.
There is a complicated calculation to work it all out.

 

would the engine also 'de'rev faster too then?

 

Cheers for the input mate, something to keep in mind when my DMF finally lets go!

A friend of mine had his crank pulley bolt snap inside the crank on his accord type r, the aux drivebelt pulley fell off, he was so fooking lucky it didn't take the cambelt with it!

Had a specialist company come out to remove the sheared bolt, made the fucker sweat for a while!!

 

there is less mass to rotate so its easier to spin up but because its easier to spin up it doesn't have the inertia to keep spinning
think of it in terms of tennis and cricket
if you hit a tennis ball with a cricket bat its going to fly but if you hit a cricket ball with a tennis bat its not