Bell housing question

Okay I cracked my aluminum bell housing on my 833 anyway picked up a old after market one awile ago it looks they are all sold with engine plates is this because there's no dust shield and is it necessary to use one thanks for the advice

Sorry I think it's a old Lakewood scatter sheild

All the old NHRA approved scatter shields came with a engine plate in front and a adapter ring to go into the front bearing hole so you could run a big or small front bearing retainer.
The later Ansen scatter shields may have came with starter nose adapter to run both the 143 tooth (large) and the 130 tooth (small) diameter flywheels.
A lot of the drag racers would leave the front plate off to loose weight
I had one of the Ansen scatter shields that only fit the street Hemi motors with the direct drive starters and 170 tooth flywheels
You may be able to still buy the kit for the Lakewood that comes with the front plate, adapter rings and the starter nose adapter, contact Lakewood to find out

So is this useless item with out the engine plate and ring I will try and post pics tommrow

No, its not useless. You can run without the engine plate - no problem. As for the starter adapter, I ran without one for a couple years (didn't even know it existed!).

The adapter ring is only used with the small o.d. bearing retainer. Rings are still available if needed.

I've heard they don't make the starter adapters anymore but if you decide you need one, one part is a cup that bolts to the bell for the starter snout and the other piece is a bracket that I think is only used with the 130 tooth flywheel in the large bell. I think both could be easily fabbed.

Plate is available from Summit.

Starter kit is not but here's a photo from Summit site

Considering the hassle of dialing in the new housing and potential parts shortage, why not just weld the crack in the old one?

Aluminum ... any day of he week !!!

I have a Lake wood that I run on my Barracuda. Never have run the complete block save plate, just made cover plate to cover the bottom. On the aluminum bell housing. Hope you can tig weld aluminum or you have a very good friend to weld up that bell housing. I just had a crack welded , the weld job as I found out is worth more than the bell housing.

But is it worth more than all the crap he needs to buy and, in the case of the starter kit, won't be able to easily find.

okay so here what im all running i have a 23 spline 833 and like 10.5 inch clutch im assuming i have the small fly wheel. Now can i i just bolt this bell to that rans in bolt it in with out the adapter ring i am just worried if i have that bell housing welded it will break again. I do have a friend who does the welding so i think i could get it done for little to nothing but i heard thos 70-71 were nothing to brag about either is the thing thanks

Whenever you swap bellhousings you must dial in the center hole, odds are it won't be centered so you'll have to deal with offset dowel pins to center it. Add to that the possible missing hardware, and welding might look like a better alternative.

Depending on what is cracked and how badly there is no guarantee the original bell housing won't need dialing in too.

Ok ,bigblock bryan didn't say anything about a starter, just the bearing retainer ring. By that I would think he has the smaller retainer and a bigger hole in the bell housing. I guess I would like to know how you cracked the bellhousing trying to install the transmission? Did you replace the clutch disc and not use an alignment tool ,then try to pull the bell housing to the block? Installing the trans with out the centering ring will not center the trans, the bolt holes are not tight enough to do that, you will have a off centered clutch disc and it will shake the heck out of your car. The ring and the bearing retainer are a tight fit. Another thing you state that bolting the trans to the bellhousing and installing it. I don't know how others do the trans install but in 50 years of putting in 4 speeds I have always put the bell housing on the engine then put the trans on the bellhousing. That is if the engine is in the car. Dialing in the bell housing: I didn't do it for years, Luck ? probably, It's easy when you have the proper tools, a hoist , a helper to rotate the engine while checking runout, then if needed, ordering the correct offset dowels from McRobb or is it robbmc? and doing it again hoping you got the correct readings the first time. It's not rocket science but sure is a pain in the butt.

This is why, when you ask a question on Moparts ... you just want to bang your head against a really hard wall !!

Hey Bryan,
Do you have an idea of why it broke?

i did use a centering tool i really i had alot of use on the cluth i was actually planning on replacing the clutch this month in it because it was getting weak the car. Is driven very hard what i was doing was i driving about 95 on the interstate coming back from breakfast bam. It was just the oddest thing i talked to a couple guys that said those particialr ones were prone to cracking too

maybe its all the thrashing i do. The other day i did a huge burnout and i accidently hit a pot hole i didn't see maybe with all the momentum it just stressed the alumminum. That bell housing is like 40 years old [censored] does weakn im guessing the previous motor that thing lived behind weren't church people

i didnt crack it installing it i did it driving it i had close 4 years on the clutch in the car

im considering having it welded

A pic of the crack would feed the debate on whether welding is wise or not.