police vehicle tech

I work in a busy police vehicle workshop in leicestershire, over the past 6 months we have had two 2006 Honda accords brought in as non starts. The starter motor ring gear on the flywheel has come adrift from the flywheel and is just spinning on the flywheel. There is no aparant reason for the failure but Honda would'nt pay for the second vehicle under warranty saying the ring gear has become detatched due to over heating! sorry but i dont believe that at all!. I have inspected the flywheel and starter ring gear myself and it seems the ring gear has slowly worked loose on the flywheel untill it has let go alltogether. Any body else who has had the same problem with accord or civic i would love to hear about it please. many thanks police tech

MSchu

Unless you're shearing bolts off... how is a ring gear going to become detached? Are you sure it's not just missing teeth?

police vehicle tech

The ring gear is heat shrunk onto the flywheel not bolted or welded. there is no damage to the teeth at all.The flywheel itself is bolted to the crankshaft.

MSchu

Ah yes...

For some reason I was thinking clamp surface. Sorry about that

police vehicle tech

Yep its strange ive never seen a ring gear come loose like that? ive seen then crack and loose tension then come adrift but this is totally intact? seems weard to have 2 the same also dont ya think?

MSchu

I would have to say so...

Are they being taxed inordinately in some fashion? What are you guys using the cars for or are they customers cars?

police vehicle tech

There unmarked police vehicles, ok they do get driven hard but i still cant understand why this would happen? Honda dont want to pay either thare saying the flywheel has been overheated causing the failure, but if you heated the flywheel it would only make the ring gear tighter in my opinion

MSchu

To me it makes sense that to much heat would cause this to become loose... but you would have to have a lot of heat, more than I would think was possible by simple vehicle operation...

police vehicle tech

Yeh i agree im going to speak to Honda customer services in a few days about it. Im just researching if others have had issues. The honda dealer near to me have confirmed they have indeed had various ring gear failures like ours but mainly on the civics im guessing the flywheels are possibly the same on the Civics anyway. Its not a dual mass just a standard fixed flywheel.

MSchu

Check your IM PVT

Bense

my thoughts are that something is going on causing the flywheel to overheat.

The flywheel is probably heating up, and then it expands from the heat. The ring gear gets stretched out from the expansion. Then when the flywheel cools down, the ring is loose.

a few years ago I spent a job working on 18 wheelers. They use huge drum brakes, think drums that weigh like 75 lbs. I recall my boss telling me about how often times in very hilly, mountainous regions the drivers would come down the mountain riding their brakes. The heat would cause the drums to expand. The driver would then pull over to a rest area and set the parking brake. Then as the drum would cool off, it would return back to it's original size and then ultimately burst.

So how could you combat this? If the vehicle is anything like the civics that I'm used to working on, you could possibly remove the dust shield to expose the flywheel. Maybe do some creative ducting, think brake ducts but for the flywheel.

Check to make sure that the clutch is being disengaged to allow full 100% clamping from the pressure plate. From my experience is not ideal to have the threshold of clutch engagement/disengagement at the pedals high and low points. It should be in the median. Sometimes when you think that the clutch is fully engaged, it's not. As the clutch wears down, things can change, so check the clutch pedal and adjust if necessary here:

floor[------$$------] pedal "untouched"
$$ being the point of clutch disengagement Do not have it like [$$----------] or [---------$$] if that makes sense.

There is the option of tack welding it, but then you have to worry about it being balanced. So yah, Good luck

antigone

I just got my 2004 Honda Civic Hybrid back from a 92000 mile servicing and their response to a startup shudder problem I reported was that I have a failed flywheel which needs replacing! It is very helpful to read your experience. They say it is not covered under my extended warranty but are willing to replace it for the cost of the part [app$500] because they will also replace a warranteed part at the same time. Are they just being so nice, or am I being snokered? I'm not sure.

ekb16

iTrader: (1)

we had a car come into our dealership awhile back for a no start and come to find out the ring gear was loose and just spun around everytime u tried to start the car...i forget wut year car it was but i think we replace the flywheel

thewrai6th

This just happened on my integra, no cracks, just loose. I guess it's a more common problem than I thought.

MSchu

The only way it would rotate is IF all bolts loosened and or sheared...

KWayRacing

Again the ring gear on a Honda OEM flywheel is not bolted to the flywheel.

PVT- did the flywheels have excessive hot spots or blued surfaces? Also, how did the clutches look compared with mileage. A decent driver for normal use can easily see 200k on a stock clutch. THe hilly area idea is good esp. for MT car because high engine braking circumstances. Have you ever spoken with the officers who were driving the car at failure point for specific fasctors? The officers are not going to change the way they drive these cars so maybe som creative ducting is store. AM interested.

Targa250R

While I've seen automatic Accords break the welds holding the ring gear to the torque converter on a few occasions, I've never seen the ring gear detach from an OEM flywheel - even when the clutch was heavily abused. That's a new one to me, and I'm a service adviser for a Honda/Acura-only repair shop that services over 70 cars a week. Given, there aren't many manual-tranmission K-series cars in the United States when compared to the hordes of automatics, but we still see our fair share of them. If it were a regular occurence, I'd have heard about it or witnessed it by now.

I suppose it is possible that they got a bad batch of flywheels. Do the two vehicles share any common threads, such as the same driver or perhaps sequential/close serial numbers?

vetrade

My 2005 Accord Euro had the clutch replaced and flywheel machined at 100,000km then just 3000km later the ring gear separated from the flywheel (no damage to the teeth on the ring gear). I was charged full labour and parts for the second job with no concession on the part of the dealer that they should have detected or anticipated the ring gear separating. Honda Australia's response was abysmal - they would give me no information about the failure and actually referred me back to the dealer for any technical information I needed - the same dealer who had already given me nonsensical info which was contradictory. Since when does a manufacturer claim not to be able to provide tecnical info on its products??

The dealer claimed the overheating of the clutch caused the ring gear separation but I suspect the flywheel machining process may have at least contributed because it was not until after the original repairs that the reing gear detached.

Seems to me that Honda are "hanging out their customers to dry" on this one.

Targa250R

Very doubtful. We send out all of our flywheels for resurfacing; the machine shop's process doesnt even touch the ring gear, nor does it heat the flywheel excessively.

This video shows a flywheel grinder in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on2prhDdzZo

The dealer's claim of the overheating clutch causing the failure is equally as doubtful. You were pretty hard on the clutch though if it only lasted 100,000km . . .

vetrade

Thanks for your comments Targa250R. Can you tell me if the same machining process would be used everywhere and whether anyone does it with the flywheel still on the car ? Also I got the original flywheel from the dealer and it had a lot of blue discolouration and some pitted areas on the surface. Shouldn't the machining remove these if it had been done properly ?

vetrade

I also agree that the clutch should have lasted more than 100,000km - I can only add that my 18YO was the driver and we subsequently realised that because he has huge feet he was tending to rest his foot partially on the clutch instead of the footrest as he was driving. Obviously your average Japanese Honda driver doesn't have size 14 feet and they didn't design the footrest with big drivers in mind !!

KWayRacing

Even after machining blued spots or uneven spots could have developed. I have never seen this failure before and I work in a high production Honda shop also. I do believe that heat is what caused this.

OP- had the clutches in either of the Hondas been replaced before? Or either of the flywheels been machined?

Vertrade, this is definitely not the dealers fault. Even if you take into consideration the fact that Honda does not recommend any machining of the flywheel. I have machined hundreds of Honda flywheels with no problems afterwards. There is the argument that machining removes mass which lessens heat dissipation properties, but the amount of actual material removed is negligible. Sounds like a fluke problem that no one could forsee. I am interested in this problem because I have never seen or heard of it before.