You ever fight with a manual transmission that just doesn’t want to slide into the clutch and bellhousing? Or one that just never seems to shift as nicely as you’d like? Or one that makes noise and wipes out your pilot bearing? Often times the reason for all three of these things is a bellhousing that is just a bit off center so that the input shaft of the transmission is under pressure. That’s why you should always use a dial indicator and a couple of simple tricks, to measure your bellhousing to find out if it is offset. Fixing it is easy, and in the video below you are going to see Jefferson Bryant show you just how to do it at home with simple tools.

Video Description:

Any time you change bellhousings for a manual transmission, it is critical that you measure the bellhousing for concentricity to the centerline of the crankshaft. The maximum offset radius is .005″, if your transmission is off center by more than this, the input shaft runs cockeyed, putting severe stress on the input shaft bearings. This means hot spots and premature failure. Additionally, the shifts will be harsher and your transmission will be noisy. If your transmission is new, failure to index the bellhousing will void the warranty.

The reason this is necessary is because even though the parts are made for each other, that doesn’t mean they are all the exact same. .005″ is the width of 5 human hairs, that is a fairly tight window. Just installing the dowel pins poorly can shift the bellhousing well outside of the window. In many cases, this is just to verify that the bellhousing is centered, but if it isn’t, then you have to address the problem.

Fixing an offset bell is easy with offset dowel pins. These are readily available for most engines and take a few minutes to install, setup, and lock in place. Jefferson takes you through the entire process of setting up the dial indicator, how to find the “zero point” for your measurements, and finally how to correct the offset with replacement dowel pins.

For this project, we are using a 2015 GM L83 Gen V LT-series engine with a new flywheel and a new @HolleyPerformance QuickTime Bellhousing for a @TREMECPerformance TKX trans. We are using this @SummitRacing dial indicator- https://www.summitracing.com/parts/su…