I bought a 2005 Dodge (vehicle in my signature) a few weeks ago. It is mostly stock and has about 200k miles on it. It seems like there may be some noise coming from the transmission/bellhousing area as I let off the clutch pedal and under load at low RPMs. There also seems to be a vibration just over 1000 rpms when the motor is revved with the transmission in neutral.

The previous owner had the clutch replaced about 40k miles ago. I spoke with the shop that performed the clutch swap and they stated that their standard practice is to recommend conversion to a single mass flywheel (SMF) but could not confirm that is what the owner chose to do. Based on the price on the receipt the shop said that most likely a Luk clutch kit was used but there's no part number to confirm that a new SMF was put in as part of the kit. I would think that if it were not part of the kit it would be a line item on the receipt like the throw out bearing.

I'd like to figure out whether the vehicle has a SMF or dual mass flywheel (DMF) because if it has a DMF the noise may be the DMF going out. If its got a SMF the noise may just be the additional noisiness (gear roll over?) caused by removing the DMF. I'd rather not pull the transmission to figure out which one is in there and I'm not familiar with the noises either scenario would cause to be able to tell the difference.

On the passenger side of the bell housing at the back of the motor looking toward the rear of the vehicle there is a cover with two holes behind it. Looking in the holes you can see the back (engine side) of the flywheel. When looking at the back of the flywheel I can see a bolt (shown in the attached pictures). I've don't see any reason that a SMF would have a bolt on the engine side of the flywheel but I've never seen a DMF so don't know if they have bolts on that side of them.

Is anybody able to tell from these pictures if there is a DMF or SMF in the vehicle? Is there any other way that I can determine this (other than pulling the transmission to look at it)?

Thanks, Richard.

 

I wanted to follow up and provide the resolution to this so hopefully it will help someone in the future.

Re: the noise mentioned in the original post - This ended up being the exhaust contacting a bracket on the firewall. When I bought the vehicle it had the stock one piece exhaust manifold that was leaking at the head. I replaced the manifold with a two piece BD-Power manifold (which has worked perfectly). The truck also has a Jacobs exhaust brake and when the exhaust work was done the elbow just after the turbo rotated a little bit and was close enough to contact a bracket on the firewall.

Re: DMF vs SMF - the vibration mentioned in the original post seemed to get worse so I took it to a shop to be diagnosed. I had already replaced the damper and after looking it over they suggested that it may be a problem with the DMF. I tore it apart and it did indeed have a DMF. The bolts shown in the original post are the bolts that hold the DMF to the adapter plate that is bolted to the crankshaft. So if you are wondering what type of flywheel your vehicle has, take a look behind the cover on the bellhousing. I put in a Valair Street Quiet Dual Disc clutch with a SMF that fixed the vibration and, while I don't have many miles on it, feels great so far. On a side note the Luk clutch pressure plate and disc that was installed about 40k miles earlier looked fine but the throw out bearing was noisy and was drying up. Even if I hadn't had the vibration with the DMF I don't think the throw out bearing would have lasted long.

On another side note, while I had the clutch out I decided to replace the rear main seal. While looking at the crankshaft with the housing still in place I could tell that there was a sleeve on it. I considered just cleaning up the sleeve (it wasn't in bad shape) but the replacement over sized seal came with a new sleeve but no plastic seal starter and the instructions said to replace both the sleeve and seal. After removing the bell housing adapter plate and seal housing I was able to pry the sleeve off using some big pry bars. The crankshaft didn't look too bad but I decided to put on the new sleeve and seal rather than a regular seal anyway. The only problem was that the seal didn't come with the alignment ring to align the seal housing. I had ordered these parts through Torque King 4x4 and bought their seal installer (Part TS6000) hoping that I could use that to align the housing but those tools are only for install. I checked with the local dodge dealership and while they had a seal in stock (for about twice what I could order it online) it didn't come with the alignment ring and they couldn't offer any suggestions regarding aligning the housing. I checked the local parts houses and found a Mahle gasket set that included what looked like an alignment tool but once I got it I found that it was only for setting the seal depth and not for aligning the housing. The only place I could find a seal that included the alignment ring was through Torque King 4x4 (QU10556) so I ordered that and it worked perfectly. If you decide to pull the bell housing adapter and main seal housing you will need the Bell Housing Adapter to Camshaft Seal (Mopar #68038153AA) and the Crankshaft Rear Oil Seal Retainer Gasket (Mopar #5086754AA). The Crankshaft Rear Oil Seal Retainer Gasket is a U shaped gasket and each leg was about a 1/4 too long but everything else lined up perfectly so I cut the extra off because it interfered with mounting the seal housing.

I wanted to relate my experiences not to promote Torque King 4x4 (I have no affiliation with them; just a satisfied customer) but in the hopes that it will help someone regarding aligning the main seal housing. Due to not having the appropriate tools my truck was down for about an extra week. Its not my daily driver so wasn't a great inconvenience but was definitely frustrating to think I was ready to start reassembly and then realize I didn't have the right parts/tools. I don't know how precise the alignment needs to be so perhaps it could be centered with some calipers but I tried this but couldn't get good measurements on it. This was mostly due to the fact that the motor is still in the truck and its hard to see the calipers. While looking for a solution I ran across a method of using plastic spacers (one each at 12, 3, 6, and 9 o'clock) which looked like it would work well but I wasn't sure of the correct measurement for them and didn't have the tools to make something precise enough for my tastes.