Various 914 maintenance and repair questions Options

[914bub]

I have a few questions about the repair and maintaining of my 914. I got my car about three weeks ago and have it stored now about 2 hours from where I am. It took almost a year and a half to seal the deal so finally "having" it but not really having it here is driving me nuts! Here's my couple of questions, I know I'll have more, especially once I actually "have" the car.

Question #1. What's the logic behind replacing the flywheel when doing a clutch? I did auto repair for 20 years as a profession,(mostly Volvo, but some others as well), and all we ever did was resurface flywheels when we did clutch jobs. Unless of course the ring gear was toast. I read the Clymer manual, (Yeah I know Clymer and Haynes manuals are best used as toilet paper but the manual came with the car so I was perusing it one night), and the Clymer manual suggests inspecting and resurfacing the flywheel as needed. (I would always consider it "needed" when doing a clutch BTW).

Question #2 What's your prefered product for preserving an un-cracked dash pad? Long ago I heard armor all would eventually dry out dash pads. I usually use vynil-x on that sort of thing but was curious what you guys prefer. Back in the 80's I heard vasaline worked well and I did use it on my Mom's vw cabriolet way back then. It seemed to work well but made everything kinda sticky and "gummy". If you guys don't have a good suggestion I'll probably stick with Vynil-x.

Thanks in advance, Bub

[r_towle]

Flywheel is different from the rest.
The pressure plate sits on a step above the friction surface.
It's critical to keep that relationship the same.
Each time you resurface the flywheel, you need to also resurface that step...so the measurement is the same...or the pressure plate won't work, and you will wear out the clutch quickly.

Then , as stated above, you have to shim the arm that moves the throw out bearing to match what you just cut off the flywheel...so that relationship stays the same.

With a new flywheel, you need to remove the shims under the arm....and the process starts all over again.the Haynes manual has a diagram showing the flywheel in section with all the tolerances you need to maintain.


As far as replacing it every time you do a clutch....hogwash.