Broken clutch bells?

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Skyline373

Well-Known Member
Messages
70
Location
Tampa, Florida
My nutech mega beetle is eating cluth bells. It broke the stock one so Scott hooked me up with the upgraded steel cluth bell and I got it in the mail today, put it on and ran it for about 3 minutes. Long enough for it to warm up and me start my tune with my pipe on and it broke the upgraded steel clutch bell in the exact same place as the stock one, right where the shaft is welded to the bell. Seems like a weak place? It's the CY 29cc engine.

Is there a company that machines a solid clutch bell so I can stop eating them? It destroys the clutch bell holder bearing also which is obviously no good.
 
atom3624 said:
There's another thread on the same subject, a couple of months back.
Check the alignment of the clutch bell - this is probably the problem.
Al.
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I broke 2 in a week..
check the gear carrier pins, there is one shorter than the other two, the short one goes towards the bottom left where the engine mount is.

Ive just seen you have a nutech, so im not sure the set up will be the same.
 
This is a Nutech not an FG so the set up might be different but the cause might still be the same - is there a possibility to the clutch to be out of alignment? Are the clutch bearings ok?
 
This is a new motor with less then 5 tanks through it total. I'll have to check and recheck the posts for alignment issues before giving it a run and I'm also going to pull the clutch to make sure it ok before putting it back together. I'm thinking it's an alignment issue like you guys are saying as I have recently swapped for the alloy clutch bell holder.
 
Skyline373 said:
This is a new motor with less then 5 tanks through it total. I'll have to check and recheck the posts for alignment issues before giving it a run and I'm also going to pull the clutch to make sure it ok before putting it back together. I'm thinking it's an alignment issue like you guys are saying as I have recently swapped for the alloy clutch bell holder.
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Thats exactly what i did. i changed the plastic carrier for the alloy holder and changed the gear carrier pins, one is shorter. Yours is the Nutech, so i have no idea about the set up - this was my problem on the FG, but its sounds like you may have done the same.
also +1 to mike, check the clutch bell housing bearings etc.
 
Well...I spoke with Scott at nutech USA and he says the pins should be the same size. I'm working now and will have to wait a bit to tear into it.
 
Skyline373 said:
Well...I spoke with Scott at nutech USA and he says the pins should be the same size. I'm working now and will have to wait a bit to tear into it.
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Ah right, well like i said when it happened to me with the FG one pin is slightly shorter. (do check them anyway)
well at least you've ruled that out.
So next to check would be the bearings. I haven't a Nutech so hopefully some one will pop up with some other suggestions. - good luck. :D
 
Boom goes the 3rd clutch bell. Ran for about 3 minutes after several hours of checking and rechecking the alignment. This time the holder bearing exploded causing the shaft to wobble at close to max rpm which bent the bell shaft about 5 degrees. Starting to wonder if the motor is out of line or off centered or what. I'm sort of lost at this point.
 
Skyline373 said:
Boom goes the 3rd clutch bell. Ran for about 3 minutes after several hours of checking and rechecking the alignment. This time the holder bearing exploded causing the shaft to wobble at close to max rpm which bent the bell shaft about 5 degrees. Starting to wonder if the motor is out of line or off centered or what. I'm sort of lost at this point.
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Get a second pair of eyes on it, the fault my be staring you in the face (no offence), maybe you LSH or where ever you got it from might be able to help.
 
there is also little tiny washers that go behind clutch bell holder/and where it gets bolted to the car if your missing those little washers your causing the clutch bell to be turned @ and angle which would force the bearings also to to run out out of true if you know what I mean?these tiny washers need to go on top with the clutch bell bolts on the "Inside" between the motor and that plate..
 
get an fg clutchbell and be done with it. I love Nutech stuff but their clutchbells aren't that great. I've snapped one too. my driveline is smooth enough to turn the wheels with one finger and I snapped one. the replacement nitech bell I went to put in the shaft wasn't even straight from the factory (it was out a lot). I tried another nutech one which is in the buggy right now but ordered an fg clutchbell to toss in the parts box for the next time this one breaks.
 
I made sure the washers were in place and even took measurements from the top and bottom and all around to make sure the holder was true to the clutch and like I said the bearing seems to have exploded unfortunately taking the bell out with it. I'm slowly losing my mind...
 
when i rebuilt an engine not so long back with a bigger block and various other parts, once fitted to the car i checked it over looking from the front of the engine to the rear and noticed things weren't exactly parallel (the side of the clutch housing and the gear carrier), so i stripped - rebuilt - checked, and it was the same. GRRrrr... stripped it again and it turned out the clutch housing (the part which the clutch sits in and is bolted to the crankcase) wasn't the same as the one i'd removed a few days earlier.. when i compared the two housings the new one was machined slightly different in one corner so the gear carrier was sitting a bit skew-wiff to the clutch housing. i re-fitted the older housing to the engine and it was then perfect.
hope you manage to sort it out anyway mate!
 
Last edited:
the bearing probably dies because of the other two clutch bells being out of whack and overloading teh bearing (think, whatever caused highloads in your first two clutch bels also put those loads in the bearing, so not surprising that it dies as well)

The only thing I can think of to help you is to take the clutch bell out and assemble the clutch carrier and bearing on to the engine. then put the clutch bell shaft through the bearing from the outside, (so that the shaft points towards the engine, i.e. backwards). you should then be able to see if it is out of whack by turning the engine/clutch bell over slowly.

Personally i'd use a DTI to spot what was out of whack, but you probably don't have access to one.

dial_indicator_with_base.jpg
 
Thank you for all the replys guys, Scott and I got this issue worked out. Seems that the stock clutch bell holder needed to be shimmed quite a bit, about 3mm. I didn't notice the bearings were shot on the last one and I think thats actually what caused the last one to fail. Had the replacement in for a week+ now and at least 7 or 8 full tanks through it and it's holding up good. Knock on wood. :D
 
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