Triumph Repair: 1972 triumph spitfire flywheel, clutch disk, minor scratches

Question
Hi Howard, I have a 72 triumph spitfire and am replacing the release bearing and clutch. I removed the flywheel also to see the pilot sleeve. The flywheel has some small scratches on it where the clutch disk contacts it. The old clutch disk is worn but not down to the rivets. Is it ok to use the old flywheel when replacing a new clutch, Thanks, Wayne.....

Answer
Hi Wayne,

That is usually a dicission you need to make by examination of the surface of the flywheel. Usually if it had not worn down to the rivits it is ok.

You can take a small fine sanding disk (3 or 4 inch) that is used with a air tool or in a small hand drill and run that over the flywheel surface just to take the polished glaze off of the face of the flywheel and if the sanding disks make their sworling marks all over the flywheel surface and don't leave a lot of non scuffed area, then is ia ok.

However, if there are large areas that the sanding disk does not contact and you can feel hollows with your fingers then it needs to be resurfaced. Just some minor scratches will have no effect on the clutch operation.

The deglazing with a small sanding disk tells the tail.

Howard