Tab broken from engine, is it a problem?
 

Hey guys, been a long time since I have made a post here. I will be slowly finding my way back on the forum. It has been a little over a year now and finally got my motor back from Pineapple. When I sent my motor in they told me that my rotors and rear plate wear rusted beyond use. I quickly had to find replacements. I found someone with a rear plate but he told me that it had a chunk missing. I had it sent to Pineapple to be inspected to see if I could use it without problems. They told me that it was a mounting tab and that if they needed it then they would weld a piece to make it work. Well I got my motor last week and saw that the piece was broken and nothing had been welded to that area. Btw, it is a tab that has a hole where a tranny bolt attaches to the engine. The upper left corner bolt
Here is a pic of the area.

http://images3.fotki.com/v31/free/00...jpg?1057670477

and another a little closer

http://images3.fotki.com/v31/free/00...jpg?1057670467

I called up Pineapple and they told me that the piece was not a critical bolt and that they had vehicles missing the piece and they were fine on those cars. They said that the biggest stresses that the engine and tranny will see are the torqueing stresses and not the tensile stresses pulling them apart.

My question to you guys is if anyone has this same situation and how it is working for you. I just want to know if I can start putting my motor back together so I can run my car again. Any help or comments would be appreciated.

Thanks

Pineapple is right in their "scientific" explanantion, but I would never do it. There are plenty of good rear covers out there so I would never use one so obviously broken. I would also be concerned if the bellhousing would now not be fully enclosed? I am not sure if that missing material will leave an open area or not.

All that said the motor will probably be fine, but my point is I would never want to have to prove that true when I could have had it done right.

Yeah, I know what your saying. That is why we had it sent to them before commiting to buy it. They just told me that it would be fine so that is why they went ahead and used the part. Also rear plates and rotors are very hard to come by. I was searching for some time trying to find them.

I appreciate the comment, though

If pineapple says it's ok, I'd imagine it's ok. They've got more experience than we all do so who are we to question them? That's my .02

Point well taken. I would personally not like to be in the situation but I am and I believe like you that if they say it would be alright then I have a hard time understand ing that it would be bad. They have never skewed me wrong before.

I agree.

Check to see if the bellhousing will be completely closed. If it is, I really don't see a problem with it.

When I did the clutch job, the two bolts on the top of the bellhousing weren't even torqued. :( Heck, it had to have been that way for at least 4 years. ;)

Good luck!

Well let's say hypothetically the piece missing does live a small gap. Do you guys see any reason why that would cause a problem. Does that area need to be totally enclosed. I believe I mentioned the same thing to Pineapple and they told me that even the small plates (that bolt to the motor that cover little areas to view inside the bellhousing) didn't need to be there. They said that everything would be fine without them and that this situation would be no different. I am still a little skeptical, though.

It's going to be fine. I've seen many broken and what are you afraid of..........you tranmission falling off your car?

:)

Well i would say water, but seeing that it's at the top of the bell housing I don't see how it would get in there. Even if it did, no big deal. I've seen many hondas that had a factory gap towards the top of the bellhousing. It's no biggie.

Not hardly, just didn't know if having one side of the tranny pulling tighter against the engine as opposed to the other side would have any ill effects. Such as how the clutch is grabbing, etc. Maybe that is not an issue though. I just wanted to make absolutely sure before I started putting it back together.

Anyone else heard of any ill effects to doing this? I think I will try and start putting pieces back on this weekend otherwise.

Thanks for all the comments

just sheetmetal the hole shut, they have dinky little access covers to cover gaps in the bellhousing anyways