Buick Brethren - I am getting all my ducks in a row so when the 482 comes home I can hit the road as soon as possible. In cleaning up my bellhousing the other night I noticed a number of what I believe to be cracks in the interior of the bell - do these alarm you? Most all of them catch my fingernail running over them. I took pictures close up to try and detail the condition - do I need to consider a new bellhousing? If so, any recommendations for or against? Since I'm here and overhauling everything I lean towards replacement, but of course don't want to unnecessarily spend. Thanks for any insight!
Thanks guys - the way I was leaning, too. Any recommendations for an 'upgraded' bell, steel vs aluminum? Always heard nice things about Quick Time, but I would certainly hope so given cost!
Looks more like casting flaws to me. See that a lot on all aluminum bell housings. Lets see what others think.
Hard to say from the pictures if it's cracked. GM seemingly made no effort to clean up the inside of those bellhousings. Every one I've seen looks like that
I agree. When aluminum cools down and shrinks, it causes all kinds of things that look like cracks. I would look at those very closely.
Not rolling the dice on mine got a steel “explosion proof “scatter shield one for my floorboards and my legs safety. One less thing ya know?
And for what it is worth here is what this one I believe is off of my 70 stage one four-speed car looks like that I put a scatter shield in also. I can see a few scattered casting marks but not like the ones in original thread. If you’re going to the nationals let me know may be able to cut a deal. Better safe than sorry
I'll take pictures tonight, but from what I recall nothing noticeable. The 'cracks' all seem to be centered about the mounting holes and I am nervous even if just a casting defect, is still a weak-spot that will be prone to failure. "Would you rather have it and not need it, or need it and not have it?" One of my all-time favorites, because I always lean on having and not needing vs the alternative. The 'better safe than sorry' mentality is all-too real and life is already too short - I don't feel like rolling dice on this one. Will be upgrading. Thanks guys.
I have glass bead blasted 3 bellhousings recently and 2 of the three looked like that. If you don't do thorough clean up you wont see it. As stated earlier the castings are not cleaned up on the inside. The outside looked fine on all of them . They all had the solid bell tone when struck with a hammer.
In the first pictures it's shrinkage or breaking, which may have been around since it was made and may have been fine behind a stock engine. What does the other side look like? For a built big block I would get a aftermarket piece for piece of mind. If it was a show car it might not matter. Go to a welding supply store and get some dye penetrate and spray the inside and see if the cracks go through.
Andrew, A safety bellhousing is a good idea for this build, since we are re-using the 50 year old cast iron wheel. If we upgraded to a billet flywheel, I would say it you could run that factory bellhousing, no concern about the casting flash marks. The flywheel here is the decision point. Pretty sure we had that discussion a while back, but it has been a while, with the lost year that was 2020.. JW
Jim, thanks for the perspective. I recall chatting about re-using the original flywheel, but like you mention this was some time ago. If still possible, I'd like to upgrade to the billet piece. I had the original flywheel resurfaced once and I recall seeing minor cracks forming then - I'd rather sleep better with the billet piece.
