Homemade Flexplate Handle.

Homemade Flexplate Handle.

There comes a time in every engines life that the flexplate need to go on. Being alone on a lot of my build my mind wanders. I admittedly over solve some things and this might be one of them.

I probably could have got away with bolt jammed in a hole or something, but hey, a chance to make a tool. This saved me some grief and allowed me to tighten the flexplate bolts without help from anyone. I had a 28" scrap piece of 3/4" square tubing that turned out to be perfect. My intension was to keep the work to a minimum. I looked at the holes flexplate and measured the bolts on the torque converter and came up with 8-1/4".




I center punched my holes and used the drill press to step through three dill sizes to 3/8". Then deburred the hole.







I got my two 3/8" X 1-1/2" bolts from my vise on my drill press.





Testing the fit, I realized that I needed to space it out a little. A washer took care of that.


I ran the bolts from the front and bolted it up. Now I could tighten the flexplate bolts that I needed to get to 80 ft-lbs without issues. This tool allowed me to tighten the crank damper bolt while it was on the engine stand.



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Great idea and even better photos. Another one that makes you say... "what have I been doing all these years?"

An idea. Same basic set up but with a angled handle so you use it with the engine still in the car.

Also how different would it be for a manual flywheel?

Good stuff!

Originally Posted by 75Squire

An idea. Same basic set up but with a angled handle so you use it with the engine still in the car.

Also how different would it be for a manual flywheel?

If your talking about when the trans is removed, a couple of pie cuts and welds would be easy. Make a Z bar out of it. I wanted a nice and easy tool that didn't seem jury-rigged and I didn't need to go fancy. Putting a piece of heater hose over the end would make a good handle too.

I don't have much experience with flyweels. I think some have holes toward the outer ring that would work if the clutch is not installed.

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