AndrewT wrote:I can confirm, 12mm is the thickness of Aluminium all us who have made them over here recently have used. but 1 or 2 mm thicker or thinner probably won't make a huge difference but might make the clutch feel different.
12mm works.
I've found the best method of making them is NOT via getting a template of the shape from somebody and trying to make another one. This just doesn't work. Even the ready made lazer cut ones you buy form BYB are way off, the bolts just don't line up and people have to elongate the shit out of their gearbox holes.
It's pretty easy to just make them yourself using the actual engine and gearbox as a guide - this way there is no chance of it not lining up!
I made this up as I went along and it worked out okay....I'll try to remember the steps off the top of my head;
- Put your EJ engine and EA gearbox on the floor, you may need to prop them up slightly on some wood etc as you will need to test fit them together lots of times.
- Work with the clutch/flywheel removed from the engine
- The EJ engine has two threaded holes at the top, and two long threads at the bottom.
- Drill out the threads in the top two holes of the engine - that's right, we just need holes there, not threads. Be very careful of the black plastic breather lines behind them, it's easy to hit them with the drill.
- Get a square of aluminum (or steel) 12mm thick
- Hold the ally against the engine and mark where the two bottom bolts touch the ally
- Drill two holes in the ally at the right position for those two long bolts
- Slide the ally onto the motor on the bottom two bolts
- Use a texta and mark out the outline of the outer edge of the engine on the ally
- Take the ally off and cut that shape out of it
- Put the ally back onto the engine
- Slide the gearbox onto the engine's bottom two bolts....you won't get far before the input shaft of the gearbox hits tihe middle of the ally - mark where it does
- Take the ally off and cut out a rough hole for the input shaft to poke through
- Slide the gearbox on and put the bottom two nuts on the long bolts and do it up tight - look's good doesn't it!
- Get bolt bolts the right length to pass through the holes you drilled out in the top of the motor and grab most of the 12mm of adaptor plate
- Put a dob of black paint on the end of them and pass them through, this puts a mark on the adaptor plate
- Take it all apart again and drill these holes into the adaptor plate, you will need the correct size drill bit and tapping set so you can tap out a thread in the adaptor plate here
- Re-fit and test the bolts to make sure they go through and do up properly
- While it's together again do the same but this time with another two new bolts to pass through the top two holes in the gearbox and into the adaptor plate - mark the holes with a dob of paint, take it all apart, drill and tap them. Note that they are slightly off-set to the other holes you drilled and tapped, be very careful as they are very close.
- Now fit the flywheel (obviously this requires that you've already modified your EA flywheel to suit the EJ engine)
- Slide the adaptor plate on and roughly mark out a circle big enough to clear the flywheel - take the adaptor plate off and cut this out. This does NOT have to be accurate at all, solong as nothing is in the way of the flywheel it's fine. Be careful you don't cut too close to the top holes you drilled and tapped, you will have to get fairly close though.
- Reassemble everything and now grab your starter motor, try to put it in, it will hit the adaptor plate, roughly mark out where you need to cut to provide clearance for the starter motor, take it apart again and roughly cut this out.
- Reassemble everything and you are done.
Note that some EJ engines have little locater things sticking out and some don't, you just need to drill little holes or cut little divits in the adaptor plate to clear these.
Here's some random photos from when I made WackyBug's one;
http://members.iinet.net.au/~carine3/IMAGE_4.jpg (metric tap inserted)
http://members.iinet.net.au/~carine3/IMAGE_2.jpg
(Bolted to the motor - note the two sets of two offset holes at the top which have been tapped. This also shows the locater things this motor had, just had to drill some holes for them to poke through)
Now there's bound to be a few more things I've forgotten in between, that's just a rough guide, but it's not too hard to do, that's the gist of it.
