Packard Forum Index » Pre-War (1899-1942)

Recently installed the bell housing, flywheel, and clutch fork on my 37 "120"engine. Just purchased a pressure plate and clutch from Max Merritt which looks great, however I'm not able to mount the pressure plate/clutch to the flywheel as there is not enough room to slide by the clutch fork. My shop manual mentions inserting a wedge tool ST-879 between the three throw out release lever fingers. So since I don't have this wedge tool I'm assuming the pressure plate needs to be "released" and spacers inserted between each of the three fingers and the pressure plate casing? I'm also assuming this will need to be done in a press which I don't have. If I"m correct in this, will/should it should allow me enough room to slide the pressure plate and clutch into position? It must also be quite difficult to remove the 3 spacers if this is the proper method? I know there has to be a lot of experts out there in Packard world who have experienced this! Also, if I'm correct on this, any idea what size spacers to use? Thanks

Packard used a long bar like tool to release the levers but unfortunately the end is not shown to see its shape or exactly where or how it was positioned. I kind of suspect the end had an L shape and maybe a thin section to fit between the lever and plate with the long side working as a lever to push the lever down. The wedges do not look to be anything special. In later models they had the mechanics use ordinary 3/8 nuts to hold the levers.

If you don't have access to a press, instread of the tool you could probably use a piece of all thread or a long bolt, a couple of large fender washers or some decent thickness scrap metal large enough to span the ends of the levers and some plywood large enough the pressure plate is supported flat at all bolt locations. Drill a hole in the center of the plywood to insert the bolt or all thread and place the pressure plate on top of the plywood with the all thread extending thru. Lay the fender washers or scrap metal on the levers and use another nut to tighten moving the washers down to force the levers down. Be sure to use some grease or anti seize on the threads so the nut wouldn't gall to the all thread.

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Thanks, I did what you suggested and it worked. I used a 3/8 nut under each of the finger levers and also drilled a hole on a nut flat and inserted a zip tie. After mounting the pressure plate and clutch it was very easy to recover the nuts with the zip tie tails as they had droped inside the pressure plate. If anyone else runs into this problem also use 1 zip tie to hold the clutch to the pressure plate when installing.

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