truck is 92 W250 CTD, auto trans. 140K ish miles. my son's truck (he said he finally joined here, IDK what username he picked) He bought 1-1/2 years ago with ~123K original miles and service records back to Day 1.
3rd owner, owner#2 had it only 5 years, and kept in garage more than he drove it for the time that he had it, put about 20K on it during that time.
Owner 2 supposedly had trans redone, "marine" injectors and pump cranked 1 notch. IDK the exact true extent of mods.
Anyways my son had the truck ~4 months and busted the flexplate around the hub. he uses as daily driver and rarely tows, but I have towed more with 1/2 ton 318 trucks than he has in the few times he has towed with it. flex plates seem to last right around 5k miles. When the 1st one blew he sent the trans (only) to CRT transmissions for a "go-through", they advertise in all the major Mopar magazines and such, he is only 40-ish miles from here. We put it back together and another 5K or so later (stock, parts store Pioneer brand used for replacement)
2nd time; had it replaced at local diesel place, he's buddies with the family that owns the place, he took the TC to a trans parts house and they rebuilt it, (non lockup, they had none in the pipeline on the shelf) and he used an SFI flexplate about 0.050" thicker than stock. Finding anything for non lockup is proving difficult, everyone says the 94-02 is supposed to fit these non L/U models.
A little history; when we originally did the 1st flexplate at home I noticed that the pads on the converter seemed too short, the flexplate wanted to bend towards the converter. He had bought a higher grade SFI plate originally, and wound up with the "stock replacement" because of the wanting to bend back towards the converter issue. so he has the 1st (higher) SFI plate here and the spacer plate that is supposed to be used with it due to its being thicker, because he had it too long for them to accept a return
with the stock replacement, it bolted right up without wanting to flex upon tightening.
When the diesel place did it, and Nick (my son) bought the lower SFI plate for them to put in, figured "it's still stronger than stock" and with how he is (under) using the truck it should be fine.
At this point, they did find that the engine to trans adapter had a big crack in it so they did replace it with a (supposedly) good used piece. 5K miles later (almost exactly) it's making that noise once again.
I have certainly heard of checking bellhousing runout with a stick trans, but never with an auto
They did wind up putting a ~1/16" thick washer between the flexplate and the converter pads to deal with the flex plate wanting to bow towards the converter issue. It tightened right up at that point w/o wanting to pull.
Looking at the front face of the converter, it looks like a 3 ring target/bullseye, and a "raised donut" looking protrusion for the middle "ring" of the bullseye/ and that seemed to be what the original SFI flexplate that he and I were going to install, was pulling against as we were tightening the bolts that hold the flexplate to the converter. What gives here? including the original, this is the 3rd flexplate that he has blown!
as a side note, being that this truck is an auto trans was the only thing that Nick had to complain about when he bought it and has talked about a stick conversion half jokingly when he brought it home but since this is now the 3rd busted flexplate he is wanting to dump the A/T more seriously now, I want him to SOLVE the issue before he adds any changes to the truck which potentially could add more issues trying to figure out just exactly why this is happening. I have never heard of a flexplate breaking on one of these trucks outside of the competition truck pulling arena. What gives?
3rd owner, owner#2 had it only 5 years, and kept in garage more than he drove it for the time that he had it, put about 20K on it during that time.
Owner 2 supposedly had trans redone, "marine" injectors and pump cranked 1 notch. IDK the exact true extent of mods.
Anyways my son had the truck ~4 months and busted the flexplate around the hub. he uses as daily driver and rarely tows, but I have towed more with 1/2 ton 318 trucks than he has in the few times he has towed with it. flex plates seem to last right around 5k miles. When the 1st one blew he sent the trans (only) to CRT transmissions for a "go-through", they advertise in all the major Mopar magazines and such, he is only 40-ish miles from here. We put it back together and another 5K or so later (stock, parts store Pioneer brand used for replacement)
2nd time; had it replaced at local diesel place, he's buddies with the family that owns the place, he took the TC to a trans parts house and they rebuilt it, (non lockup, they had none in the pipeline on the shelf) and he used an SFI flexplate about 0.050" thicker than stock. Finding anything for non lockup is proving difficult, everyone says the 94-02 is supposed to fit these non L/U models.
A little history; when we originally did the 1st flexplate at home I noticed that the pads on the converter seemed too short, the flexplate wanted to bend towards the converter. He had bought a higher grade SFI plate originally, and wound up with the "stock replacement" because of the wanting to bend back towards the converter issue. so he has the 1st (higher) SFI plate here and the spacer plate that is supposed to be used with it due to its being thicker, because he had it too long for them to accept a return
with the stock replacement, it bolted right up without wanting to flex upon tightening.
When the diesel place did it, and Nick (my son) bought the lower SFI plate for them to put in, figured "it's still stronger than stock" and with how he is (under) using the truck it should be fine.
At this point, they did find that the engine to trans adapter had a big crack in it so they did replace it with a (supposedly) good used piece. 5K miles later (almost exactly) it's making that noise once again.
I have certainly heard of checking bellhousing runout with a stick trans, but never with an auto
They did wind up putting a ~1/16" thick washer between the flexplate and the converter pads to deal with the flex plate wanting to bow towards the converter issue. It tightened right up at that point w/o wanting to pull.
Looking at the front face of the converter, it looks like a 3 ring target/bullseye, and a "raised donut" looking protrusion for the middle "ring" of the bullseye/ and that seemed to be what the original SFI flexplate that he and I were going to install, was pulling against as we were tightening the bolts that hold the flexplate to the converter. What gives here? including the original, this is the 3rd flexplate that he has blown!
as a side note, being that this truck is an auto trans was the only thing that Nick had to complain about when he bought it and has talked about a stick conversion half jokingly when he brought it home but since this is now the 3rd busted flexplate he is wanting to dump the A/T more seriously now, I want him to SOLVE the issue before he adds any changes to the truck which potentially could add more issues trying to figure out just exactly why this is happening. I have never heard of a flexplate breaking on one of these trucks outside of the competition truck pulling arena. What gives?