Flywheel issue on older vw beetle

[jdanko18]

Hey guys,

Wonder if anyone out there can help with this issue... I am looking for a flywheel for a 61 beetle (I am not an engine guy, but I am told it's a 61 beetle engine) and I thought that I needed a 109 tooth 180mm flywheel with 4 dowel holes. I have my project dune buggy at the mechanic and I found a flywheel, ordered it, and came to find out that it was supposed to have 8 dowel holes. In my searchings I only saw ones with 4 dowel holes. The buggy is a 12 volt conversion with a hybrid like converted starter- the previous owner did not know they make hybrid starters and had someone make a 12 volt starter with a gear to match up with the old 6 volt flywheel. Not sure if thats the issue, but the current flywheel on the buggy is missing about half the teeth, thus my efforts to find a new one. Short of changing the starter to a hybrid and upgrading to a 200mm 130 tooth flywheel and grinding to make the bigger flywheel fit, does anyone know or have one of these 180mm 109 tooth 8 dowel flywheels. I have exhausted all the websites.. the samba, jcwhitney, mamotorworks, bughaus etc I just cant find one. Please help!!! Thanks. JD

[didget69]

JD:

You have some options available here -

1) Use the new flywheel & remove 4 of the unnecessary dowel pins from the crankshaft.


2) Drill the new 180mm flywheel, using an 8-dowel jig, to get the additional 4 holes you need.

www2.cip1.com/SearchResults.asp?Search=dowell&Search1=Search


BUT you must run the correct starter designed to mate with the flywheel - i.e., 6-volt starter with 6-volt flywheel, or some hybrid starter with 6-volt gear & 12-volt solenoid/guts...

www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=551031

Bryan in NC

[mpm]

61 model year had 4 dowels (Post the engine # we will tell you the year). Apparently the motor has been rebuilt with a possible counter weight crank. As Bryan noted...leave the xtra ones out or drill. Make sure you dont have a lot of play on the crank(push & pull the flywheel). The starter teeth should have gone bad before the flywheel teeth, Also check the starter brass bushing for play, fits in the transmission nose.

Regards,
Mark

[jdanko18]

Ok so I am going with leaving out some of the dowel pins and trying the new flywheel.... but again another issue. I know there are different size dowel pins and when I was at the mechanics today he showed me that the replacement ones I ordered were too small... I looked around online at some posts on the samba and found that there are different sizes, and the replacements I ordered are too small. From what I can tell they should be the bigger of the two available sizes (5/16), but the flywheel currently on my vw has had all 8 holes drilled to 11/32 with that size dowel pin. So I had my father use his drill press and drill those 4 holes out another 1/32" to accommodate the original dowel pins and I think they should fit fine now. However, here's my question. With the 8 dowel flywheels there is an offset dowel . I think the 4 dowel one I have has all 4 holes equal distance from each other and from center. If I am leaving out 4 dowels I assume that it must include the offset dowel and the other matching 3 in that square. Will I have any balance issues with this dowel pattern? Thanks again guys. JD

[didget69]

JD -

You should be using the standard VW 4-pin pattern, not the offset pin location used in the SPG-style pattern. Just match the flywheel up to the 4 equidistant holes & you should be good to go.

This begets more questions: is this flywheel an o-ring or non o-ring style? Is the crankshaft they used in the engine an o-ring or non o-ring style?

Bryan in NC