Posted by Joe lorenzino on Wednesday, November 20, 2002 at 11:41AM :
In Reply to: Re: Flywheel Ring Gear Replacement ? ? ? posted by Brewer on Wednesday, November 20, 2002 at 9:43AM :
At the machine shop I work in, we hold the flywheel vertically in the vice, then take a SHARP chisel and drive it into the low spot between 2 ring gear teeth. Just a couple of good hits in 3 or 4 spots, and the gear will be stretched enough to fall off. If you want to reuse the gear, (we have "flipped" many of them to use the other edge) then we will heat them ,or just drive them off with a BRASS drift. When installing, I usually stilt the gear up on a few 1/2" nuts on the bench, and heat it from the Inside Edge before dropping it onto the flywheel. It only needs about 350-400 degrees F for the gear to drop on. Heating from the inside edge prevents overheating the teeth (they warm up faster due to greater surface area)which can cause them to loose temper/hardness. If the teeth on the new gear show "heat colouration" (sort of rainbow colours from the outside edge inward) then that gear HAS been heat treated, and care should be taken not to overheat the teeth. When heating ANY piece of steel, if it turns as dark as blue or purple, most if not all heat treatment has been lost. J.V.L.