348 Flywheel Damper Regrease

[stevew]

As part of the on going maintenance/improvement programme on my 348 I decided to strip down the flywheel damper and replace the grease.Although I have not had any of the problems associated with the grease breaking down I have had the dreaded triple seals leak and problems with the slave cylinder, added to these two facts that the grease was probably the original stuff put in when the car was made I thought it couldn't do any harm to change it.

Firstly the Bellhsg/clutch/flywheel assy needs to be removed from the car, removal procedure is outlined in this thread http://www.clubscuderia.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=6606 along with the clutch slave seal changes/improvements and the triple seal change.

[stevew]

Once the assy is on the bench remove the 3 allen cap bolts (item 67) that hold down the ring gear, it is a tight fit so you may have to gentle pry it off the clutch.Do this evenly moving around the ring gear.

Removing the ring gear will expose the 9 allen cap bolts (item 64) that fasten the clutch cover to the flywheel.When these are removed carefully remove the clutch cover and plate.
As you can see I have marked the position of the ring gear, clutch cover and flywheel so they go back in the same place.TBH it doesn't really matter if you mark them or not, if you are changing the clutch it wouldn't matter if you marked them so I can't see why it matters if you are not but I always feel better if I put thingsback in the same place:grin:

When removed I checked the thickness of my clutch plate, the WSM states that it should be 7.7mm thick with a wear ltd of 1.5mm, so I was pleased to find it measured 7.6mm:thumbsup: Normally I am a big advocate of changing anything that wears if I am doing a particular job but since the clutch was in such good order and the fact that it is so easy to change I decided not to replace it.

BTW this is for the later single plate clutch the earlier twin system is slightly different.

[stevew]

Now turn the assy over and remove the 4 nuts (item 60) that fasten the ring nut cover (item 58) down, remove the cover to expose the ring nut.

[stevew]

Remove the allen screw from the centre of the ring nut.

Now remove the ring nut (item 56), I advise you to get the proper 60mm Ringnut tool from Hill Engineering for this job.You will find that the ringnut is tight, really tight, I used a powerful impact gun to do the job.

[stevew]

Once you have removed the ringnut screw it back in a few threads, now give it a tap with a soft mallet and this should free damper/flywheel assy of the rear brg, remove the ringnut and the damper should come out of the rear brg completely.
NB make sure you support the flywheel when it comes free of the brg:thumbsup:

[stevew]

Now that the flywheel/damper assy is free from the bellhsg mark the the flywheel and damper so that can be reassembled in the same position ( I scribed a couple of lines down the side of both items) remove the 6 bolts that hold the flywheel to the damper and remove the flywheel.

Inspect the flywheel for marks, cracks and wear and send to be faced if required.The flywheel on the single clutch has a lip which means it cannot be ground on a conventional machine (not sure if this is the same for the twin system flywheel)

According to the WSM the maximum amount that can be ground of the face is 1mm, mine was fine with no wear:thumbsup:

Mark the 2 parts of the damper so that they are reassembled in the same position.
Remove the 2 plugs in the damper and using 2 longer bolts of the same thread(as you can see I found that metric brake pipe unions work perfectly:thumbsup: ) screw the bolts into the damper, evenly tighten the bolts and you will see the 2 halves of the damper being pushed apart.Continue until the damper is split.

[stevew]

The damper is now split and you can see exactly what condition the grease is in.Mine wasn't as bad as I was expecting although the discolouring shows it has been contaminated with gear oil and clutch fluid.

It is a very messy job:cry3: :cry3: lay all the components out in order that they come off in(again not really necessary but I feel better doing it this way)

[stevew]

Now it's cleaning time, clean all parts thoroughly keeping them in order(if your like me :grin: )

[stevew]

Once all the parts are clean build up one half of the damper as shown, don't forget to fit the 6 new O rings in this half of the damper.

[stevew]

Now using an accurate set of scales weigh the assembled half of the damper,make a note of the reading:thumbsup: now apply the special Klubber grease evenly to the damper.

The WSM states 180g of grease but I believe this figure was increased by the factory.Unfortunately as with a lot of data for Ferrari's no one could give any definate figures.A search on fchat brought up many differing figures for the weight, after discussing the issue with Paul Hill and Terry the figure of 200g was settled on.

[stevew]

Now fit the large O ring that seals the 2 halves of the damper to the edge of the top half, apply a small amount of rubber grease to the O ring.
Fit the 6 new O rings to the top half of the damper using some grease, same for the 2 plastic strips.
Now using the 6 dowels (actually they are Rover V8 pushrods:grin: ) to keep the holes inline lower the top half anto the bottom half and press home by hand.
Make sure that the marks you put on prior to splitting the damper are lined up.

[stevew]

Don't forget to fit the plugs to the damper:thumbsup:

[stevew]

Fit the damper back onto the flywheel, again making sure you line the marks up that you made earlier.Torque the bolts up to 20NM, I also applied a small amount of threadlock.

Don't forget to fit the spacer:thumbsup:

Slide the Damper onto the rear brg, it will slide on as long as it is nice a square.

Screw in the ringnut, again applying some threadlock.Torque to 224NM:shocked:

Once the ringnut is tight fit the allen screw with some threadlock and tighten the allen screw against the spacer.This allen screw doesn't as some suggest, adjust anything, it is merely another locking device for the ringnut.

Fit the ringnut cover.

[stevew]

Now refit the clutch and ring gear and refit the assy back to the car:thumbsup:

The O ring sizes are 230mm x 3mm for the large one and 8mm x 1.5mm for the 12 small ones.Use Viton O rings if you can.

When I enquired with various well known specialist and parts suppliers to buy the O rings I was surprised to find out that non knew what I was talking about and was even more shocked when one told me that the dampers were never split, grease was just pumped into them with a syringe via the 2 plug holes that are used to seperate the 2 halves of the damper:shocked: :shocked: :shocked:

:hmmm: so how do they know how much is in there doing it this way, because too much can be damaging:shocked:

[stevew]

There are 3 brgs, the front one (item 48), the rear one (item 55) and the one in the middle of the damper that no one lists, although there is a number on it so it wouldn't be difficult to source.
All my brgs were in perfect condition, although I did replace the front a rear ones simply because I had replacements.

These pics show the front brg removed and the new one refitted

[stevew]

These next 2 show the inner brg

[stevew]

These show the rear brg being removed and the new one refitted.