[willman3755]

Wait...are you saying the flywheel is hard mounted to the motor shaft with no bearings other than what's in the motor?

And you want to keep that $hit$how if that's the case and put a thrust bearing on the butt end of the motor instead of at the flywheel end?

😬

For what it's worth, a good machine shop can build that shaft wear back up again...

Perhaps some pictures are in order here to make sure we are discussing the same thing...

Here's the motor + flywheel + clutch + adapter plate as it came out of the car.

Here's the flywheel bolted onto the shaft coupler, and then the shaft coupler without the flywheel. It is directly bolted, relying on the internal bearing of the motor as you pointed out. This adapter also has the pilot bearing in it for the input shaft of the transmission to stay concentric to the flywheel.

From my reading, this seems to be the same as most conversions similar to mine are done. Do some people add additional bearings to the adapter plate or similar to better support the motor? Or were you just thinking I didn't have a pilot bearing?

My logic was the front of the motor from the factory has a wavy washer, and every time you press/release the clutch you are putting an axial load on the motor shaft; this results in real axial motor shaft movement relative to the motor housing, slowly wearing down the motor shaft where it rides in the bearings. My proposed solution is to add a thrust bearing (like an engine has) in the front of the motor to properly deal with these loads and minimize axial shaft movement. Am I missing something fundamental here?

You are correct that I could have a machine shop add material and then turn the shaft down to the correct size, but my thinking was if someone had a motor in their basement for $200, that would be a lot cheaper... I am also missing the cooling turbines in this motor, so I also could use a new motor for other reasons as well.

Or perhaps I bite the bullet and buy a controller for my DLC-28 and put that in instead... then I get better efficiency, regen, etc... but a lot more expensive and complicated than another brushed motor.

 

[willman3755]

No, I wasn't talking about the pilot. I suspect most people don't shift the car, but I wouldn't know, as I don't do this kind of stuff - in the video you even shift reverse, which cycles the annular bearing 10x what a leave in 2nd gear person, even for reverse, would do.

Whatever you put in needs either a tapered bearing or a deep groove ball AT the flywheel, or at least at the flywheel end of the motor. The motor shaft lengthens with heat, so you'll never get it right comping for thrust loads out that far, imo, if you do the convenient end.

What you do from here are your own choices. Prepare for more half-assery if you rework the far end for thrust loads though, imo.

Thanks for advice, I think you're right and tapered bearings at the flywheel end are the only way to fix this long term.

FWIW I have no way to reverse this car besides using the reverse gear, I don't have reversing contactors and would prefer to keep using the transmission for reverse as it's simpler and cheaper, even if it results in more wear. Plus it's cool needing to fully utilize the stick shift to drive this car 😎