Originally Posted By RoadRunner
Originally Posted By moparx
Originally Posted By Tom_Quad
You all missed the mark on this one. It's the basics of manual transmission. If you guys were real technical support people you all would have pink slips.

Before installing new parts the bell housing needs to be inspected for cracks and checked for run-out and squareness while bolted to the block and all fasteners torqued to spec.

well, i'm not caring if i get a pink slip or not [i'm retired], but just how many transmission assemblies [clutch, pressure plate, bellhousings] were dialed in to be true at the original assembly plant ? now you are correct the parts in question need to be inspected for cracks, burrs on mounting surfaces, bolt torque, etc. but over the years i have ran into problems with clutch discs and flywheel/pressure plate chattering. in all but a couple instances, the only way the problem was fixed was replacement of clutch parts. no dial-in of the bell was done. i am very well aware of the importance of the dial in process and the need for parallelism of the mounting surfaces, but there are more cars out there running just fine without those checks being done than those that have. when replacing parts these days however, care must be taken to insure there are no burrs on mating surfaces, and things such as pressure plate fingers are even heights and throwout bearing flanges are not dinked up. aftermarket bells need special attention. back in my day, however, replacement parts were of better quality than those available today. the OP asked for advice and all i could give is what i have ran into in over 50+ years of playing with these things. i make no claims about me being the only "super genius" in the land and a person should not listen to anyone else's experiences or expertise. you have valid points, and one could and should check these things. but to have us all "fired" because we state our life experiences is just a little course. it just kinda rubbed me the wrong way. i apologize if i have offended you.
beer



I am not sure on other manufacturers, but Mopar didn't have to dial in bell housings as they were machined already on the block. Somewhere I have an old black and white picture showing this. So, as long as the original bell housing and block are together, there should never be an issue. Once you change the bell housing, then you need to do some alignment. Certainly checking the other parts is good practice. I agree that quality of some parts may not be as expected.

i have seen that pic you refer to a few times. in the early 70's to 1984 i owned a junk yard [the correct term at that time] and we commonly got in 4spd a&b body wrecks, plus big and small block vehicles of all kinds. we sold many mis-matched engine/bellhousing combos and had no problems with transmission shifting issues or clutch/pressure plate/flywheel problems, provided the clutch parts and flywheel were from the same setup. never dialed in a bell. in fact, i only realized that should be done after i sold the yard ! of the problems we did encounter, it was mostly due to either the inexperience of the end user during assembly, or something stupid such as a contaminated clutch disc or sloppy assembly techniques such as forcing a transmission input shaft through a non-aligned clutch disc, wrong throw out bearing, or burrs on mating surfaces. we sold a ton of ford and gm parts too, and the issues were the same. nobody back in that time checked bellhousing alignment. but that could be because we were located in the "sticks", and probably would be considered "farmers" by today's standards. was it "right" ? he!! no.... but it worked as it was designed to. once again, just my life's experience. and i'm absolutely positive others around the country have had the same results.
beer