[AC Ventura]

Hi guys,

I’m curently fitting the flywheel (M 6375 N427), clutch (McLeod Super Street Pro 12”) and bellhousing (QT RM 6057) to a newly pro built alloy 427 FE.

Despite no experience of assembling American V8’s, I thought I had it all covered, but now somethings not quite right. Anyhow this is the story so far.

The virtually fully built motor is still on the crate stand.

I started by tapping in the sintered pilot bush into the crank. Well known engine builder assured me needle roller not reqd. A bit firm tapping it home, but no shavings or big dramas there. Next the block/dust plate and then the flywheel, torquing down to 75 ft lbs. All went on pretty good, if again good press fit. 184t Flywheel has odd spaced holes, so only goes on one way. There’s about a 0.55” gap between the flywheel and the block plate. Don’t know if that is normal, but checked the mini starter and pinion was at rest, about 3/16 back from the ring gear, However, when unwinding the bendix it enagaged fully. Indexed the starter, loctited the screws and removed it, to retro fit later.
Fitted the bell, dialled it and found surprising .022” TIR error. Made some offset dowels, got it within .002”, retained the dowels with loctite and retested all good.
Removed the bell, fitted the clutch friction plate (sintered pads to flywheel) with supplied spigot spline locator thing.
First question. When bolting the pressure plate it was off (ie a gap) of 3/16 -1/4” from the flywheel. Bolted it down quite easily until it was flush with flywheel, finally criss crossing until 35 ft lbs. I presume it’s not supposed to be flush on free assembly to allow some preload. Am I correct?
So far so good. Assembled the std Ford fork (spring clip) and McLeod TOB (external slave) and here’s the problem. The assembled block plate to clutch finger height is around 3.62-3.75”, but the distance from the spinning face of the TOB (with the fork touching the bell window) to bellhousing flange is about 1/4 less than that. So I can’t assemble the bell to the block as the TOB hits the fingers and precludes free assembly.
I’d be more than happy to be embarrassed if somebody will tell me what I’ve done wrong. The fork supplier (also well known FE specialist) says the RM 6057 is designed for the standard fork.