Date:         Fri, 13 Jul 2001 07:28:19 -0400
Reply-To:     "Spooner, Robert E." <bob.spooner@MIDDLETOWNPOWER.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         "Spooner, Robert E." <bob.spooner@MIDDLETOWNPOWER.COM>
Subject:      TIICO: drive plate confusion
Comments: To: bill.knight@USA.NET, billyfeet@surfree.com
Comments: cc: peterb@tiico.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Bill said, "...Also, the drive plate is 2mm thicker than stock.  This
means you need 2mm longer bolts to connect the torque converter.  These
bolts are not included in the kit.  It was hard finding new bolts with
the required 12.9 quality grade.  The length of these bolts is critical
because the torque converter threads bottom out at a certain depth and
thus if your bolt is too long, you would be fooled into thinking
everything was tight when it really wasn't."

Will and Bill and interested folks on the list,
I'm also mid-way through the conversion (boxer out, hopefully I-4 going
in this weekend).  I'm also doing an automatic.  My kit does not include
the torque converter "drive plate".  As I understand it, the drive plate
is that part from which you have to remove 3 bolts (releasing the drive
plate from the torque converter) to drop the engine.  Did your kit come
with a new drive plate...that whole 3-holed pie plate thing?

Or, do you re-use the drive plate from the boxer.  Did you need to
source 3 new bolts or five new bolts?  I'm wondering if the piece that
is 2mm thicker than stock is actually the part on the engine that the
torque plate bolts to.

I have 5 bolts in a bag attached to the engine, did you have these?
They appear to be the bolts that you would use to attach the drive plate
to the engine, but I don't know.

One more question, for now: my engine does not appear to have an adapter
on the bell housing end.  There is just the engine block, no "adapter"
that TIICo made reference to.  Am I missing this too?  

Thanks for any help.

Bob Spooner
Environmental Engineer
Middletown Generating Station
Middletown, CT