Coupler Question

Sounds like you answered your question. Loose is loose and not good and your going to have a precision one made and your problem is solved before you even start.

Get a new clutch and pressure plate and flywheel.

Pete

I pretty much blew off a lot of things when I did my conversion, so attention to detail was not huge on my list for my first one. But one thing I wanted to be somewhat precise about was the coupler. There was a little wiggle when I was testing it, and it soon worked its way loose. I fixed it up until it was tight and centered. That was about a year ago and it's holding up. There are far too many threads on this board about couplers going bad, might as well DIRF it. Do it right the first time....

omonoid,
the first connector I had in my Electro-Willys was made from the center of an old clutch. It slid on easy and had a little wiggle room. With use, and the torque from the motor, it contributed to breaking my motor shaft off inside the motor. VERY EXPENSIVE REPAIR!!!! Part of the problem was the less-than-perfect allignment on the adapter plate holding the motor to the bell housing. The motor shaft needs to be pointing straight at the input shaft, or any little wobble will begin to spin it off center and begin to tear it apart.

I went back to the flywheel and clutch. That is working very well, and it's a ton easier on the transmission for shifting.

I assume this is a clutchless setup. If the transmission shaft has it's own output shaft support bearing as opposed to using a pilot bearing to support the end of the shaft then a slight amount of play in the clutch spline is probably not going to cause issues if your adapter plate is accurate. If you can wiggle the transmission output shaft then you may have problems.