[MPKind]

What started as a clutch swap turned into a balance issue. The engine has a stock (external) balance flywheel, rotating assembly was balanced. Brought the wheel and the clutch to a shop to check balance. They added a ton of wt to the clutch. Not knowing any better, it was installed and the engine vibrated bad. Informed the shop, and they offered to remove the clutch and rebalance.

I assumed they'd just restore the clutch to factory neutral and knock the weights off, but instead they removed material from an original '65 stock flywheel, removed the clutch wts and then re-added wts...I couldn't believe it when I heard later. I didn't know at first, but when driving the car I knew something was off. Called and was told the flywheel had been modified, I knew that was a totally worng thing to do, so I called them out on it.

This threw off the rotating assembly balance of course. Car goes back to the shop a second time. They had a real stock '75 flywheel on hand in very good condition to replace the '65 wheel. This time I take the flywheel and clutch to my engine shop for a dynamic balance, instead of a static balance.

At this point I have a stock '75 flywheel w/external balance with a neutral balanced clutch. It still has vibrations. It's worse now than with the flywheel and clutch assembly neutral balanced.

I've read on forums that all stock Pontiac flywheels from '64 to '76 have the same external balance. I cannot find any documents that support that claim or any specs on them to check, and now with this other wheel on, I'm finding it hard to believe.

It looked good on paper, but it's not right.

I took the car home last night and there it sits. I couldn't leave it there forever and keep trial and erroring this just hoping it'll work. The engine shop has the bob wt card still from 15 years ago on the 455 build, but according to them it won't help to verify if the '75 flywheel is exactly the same as the '65.

This is a major bummer to my summer, so it's pretty much done. I doubt I'll be made whole by the transmission/driveline shop. They did what they could to fix it after taking it apart twice.

At this point there's only one option, remove the crank and rebalance the works.

This is another lesson on spending money and getting nowhere.