Technical Question for the Cadillac guys

I have a fresh caddy 390.....i want to put a stick behind it, which flywheel do I need? Will an olds work?

 

I believe Olds can only be used on the early style 331's.....check out http://www.wilcap.com for options, Pat who runs Wilcap is a real nice person to deal with....

 

I used a y block fly wheel,bored the centre and redrilled it to suit the crank .I took the ring gear off the cad drive plate and machined the OD of the y block to the cad dia and sweat the ring gear back on and added a couple of small tacks.Right weight as well apparently.
Not alot of choices down here.
Squeak Bell sells one he has had made up from Bakersfield,you could try him.
As said though,wilcap do them also.

 

An Old's V8 flywheel '49-'56 will work. '57 & later are un-balanced.
Flywheel tooth count is different for '49-'53 & '54-'56. starter drive must match the flywheel.

 

Hey Pete ... think ^^ 42Merc ^^ has you handled ... but have you seen some of Tuck's Cadillac posts .... ( yep I'm a Tuck stalker/guy has 51 and a dozen irons ... in the fire always/like you of course ) .... this has some info that you may or may not have already seen. Go down a few posts.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/cadillac-390-guys-crank-question.987031/

Good luck sir.

 

I have a NOS Weber flywheel for olds caddy, so I'll use that....

 

Here's the flywheel. 176 tooth count

 

So, what's the question ?

 

Which starter should I be using with the above flywheel?

 

Ok....so i dug a little deeper into the flywheel

Got this info but the year jump seems off??

Does this mean my flywheel is not balanced??

 

Can you simply balance the flywheel? Or have the engine balanced if using the earlier flywheel? I have a 58 365 I want to put a stick behind

 

Unfortunately you have to balance the engine while it's apart. Weight the pistons and rods. Etc..

Another way to do it...which is how I'm going to, is to add small weights to the pressure plate, kind of a trial and error method but iv been told it works just fine.

 

Pete, I read on another post that cadillacs were zero balance and only 57-up Olds had to be balanced?

 

I hope so....I keep hearing conflicting stories.

I'm not even sure what I'm gonna put the 390 in.

 

I'm running a scheifer flywheel for Olds on a '60 Cad engine. I had the flywheel balanced for the internally balanced Cad engine. Used hard in a race car for 11 years now and no problems.

 

Pete, I'm the same. I have a 365 with some speed parts I want to put in something...but not sure what yet

 

As far as Olds stick V8 flywheels, 50 to 56 were all neutral balanced wheels. (no sticks were made in 49 on V8!) 50-53 are coarse teeth that must use the matched starter tooth pitch, 53 starter is the only 12v with the correct pitch for the 50-53 flywheels. 50-52 are 6v. 57 up are the external counterweighed wheels.... easy to spot if you look at the back sides to see if they are uniform like pre-57, or on 57 -up, there will be a very large "balancing" void in the casting.


as far as putting Olds wheels on an early Cad crank; the Olds has one bolt hole slightly offset to keep the flywheel clocked to the crank without need of a dowel pin. Cad stick wheels & crank are same bolt circle as Olds, but do not have the offset hole....file to fit!

 

Good info! The flywheel I bought (have not got it yet) came off a short bell 1955 331 Cad.

 

I'd take a look here, lots of good info: http://www.modifiedcadillac.org/forum/

 

Chris, if it came off a 55, then it'll fit yours just fine. They're all internally balanced.

 

Great, thank you!