Okay so I'm out breaking in my Savage 4.6 today. All is going fine and dandy. Then suddenly the clutch would not engage but the engine was run and would rev as normal. I bring it home cause, this is obviously a problem. I dismount the engine, remove the clutch bell and the springs on the clutch shoes a grinded to nothing. The part that touches the shaft of the engine to be exact is what was grinded away.

My fly wheel is loose and wobbly and the "clutch nut" http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXDLF5&P=7 (not sure what that's called exactly) is stuck on and I can't get it off.

So I have a couple of questions:

1. How can I get the "clutch nut" off?

2. What caused this, so I can prevent it in the future?

Any tips or help will be greatly appreciated.

--ROBBMAC

Well... your clutch springs were ground off because your flywheel was standing still while the crank shaft was spinning the nut that the ends of the springs rest on. If you ran it long enough to do that, your flywheel and/or collet are both probably trashed as well.

To get a crank nut off that is siezed with a flywheel that spins, there aren't a lot of options.
One way is to pull the engine off and take the backplate off, then stick a tooth brush beside the crank shaft inside the engine so it can't rotate. (probably the safest)
Another way is to take the engine off, pull the glow plug, rotate the crank until you see the piston go about half way up/down (until it covers the exhaust port). Fill the glowplug hole/cylinder with ARO and put the GP back in. This will hydrolock the engine and should let you break the nut loose. This will put a lot of stress on the con-rod though.

Olds97:

First off, thank you for a quick answer!

I figured the flywheel and collet were trashed so no biggie, as long as I haven't damaged the engine itself I'm okay.

What causes the flywheel wheel to go static while the crankshaft and nut continue to spin? I've never had this happen before so I'm mostly interested in its cause so that I can prevent it in the future.

Also, would aluminum clutch shoes be recommended for the 4.6?

Thanks to the good folks at HPI, the kit actually had an extra set of clutch springs and a collet. I got the flywheel off using the "toothbrush" method and it appears to be okay.

I still need to know what exactly was the cause so that I can not have history repeat itself. Thanks all for reading or at least considering a solution.

the flywheel nut loosend up, make sure u tighten that down a ton with channel locks to hold the flywheel, and use thread lock on the nut

That makes hella sense, thanks. I thought I tightened it down but obviously there was some room to go still. Thanks fellas and have a good weekend.

Glad to hear you got it apart and hopefully fixed.

I like your toothbrush method Olds, I've always done the ARO method but its much more of a mess.

I always use my simple piston locking tool. Just remove the glow plug & turn the engine, so the piston is on the bottom. Thread in the locking tool, & remove the flywheel nut. The other ideas here are great as well. I have had this happen also. Definitely use loctite & get the nut really tight. This problem can trash several things, all within very little run time !

Those put a lot of strain on the con-rod and piston.

Would you all recommend a really deep 8.5mm socket to tighten that nut. I initially used a pair of needle nose pliers to tighten it down. I found it very hard to get too, as this was my first clutch with 3 pairs of shoes. I suspect that the tool I used gave a false feel of tightness, and I did use a good of thread lock (which made it extremely difficult to remove).

As I've said in another thread, this is my first monster truck, and so far I'm liking it. Thanks once again for all the great answers.

My 4-way glow wrench has a driver on it that works perfectly... I have a standard 10th scale 4 way wrench, not the buggy wrench with a 17mm hex on it. I have this one:http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXD711

I can't remember if it's the one that opposes the glow wrench or not...

Yeah that 10mm side should do the trick, I'm off to the hobby shops. Thanks!

Good to hear your problem solved, but I HATE that wrench! The glow plug part works great for getting glow plugs out (it has a clip inside to hold them) but it can't get wheel nuts off because of it!

The instructions make it nearly possible to tell which way this flywheel/clutch nut is supposed to face from the pictures. Plus the nut in the kit doesn't exactly look like the one in the picture in the manual.

So my new question is:

Does the "coned" end of the nut face towards the engine or away from the engine?

its tapered so the cone faces out u want it to be tighter the farther u tighten down the flywheel. DO NOT use a piston locking tool, not only does it put alot of strain on the rod, but it also puts a divit in the top of the piston which is also bad news