230 SL Automatic Flywheel

[JimVillers]

We are finishing up Gary Tyre's 230SL engine and I was getting ready to install the automatic transmission.  I noticed that one of the tabs on the metal riveted to the flywheel to connect to the torque converter had a broken tab.  I have attached a couple of pictures to illustrate the issue.

I checked with MB on a flywheel and they cost $825 or so.

What are the thoughts about continuing to use this flywheel?  My guess is that the car has run some years in this condition as I also saw some scrapped aluminum where it looked like either the flywheel was not tight or the transmission bolts were not tight at some point in this cars life.

The last thought, anyone have a used 230SL flywheel for an automatic?   

[ja17]

Hello Jim,



Definately not a good situation. I would fix it for sure. If it fails the car will be helplessly stranded. It may also cause some strange vibrations under acceleration.

I would install a used flywheel or get a good used flex plate and have it re-riveted to the flywheel.

In any case the replacement flywheel would have to be counter balanced as the original.  They do this by taking the original flywheel and bolt it up to the new one (180 degrees rotated) and then balance the assembly doing all the adjusting on the replacement flywheel.  In this way the replacement flywheel becomes an exact  twin of the original and has the same counter balance.

You most likely would not have to do any balancing if you just changed the damaged flex plate. Not sure who may be able to re-rivet this for you, but it sounds like it would be worth looking into.

I should have some flywheels around here if you decide to go that route let me know.