My Flywheel arrived.
It does NOT look like what I expected.
Of course the first thing to do was for me to freak out, as it has been a pain in the butt to find this unusual flywheel, I got it sight unseen, and I had to rely on the kindness of both friends and strangers.
The flywheel was unusually thick - it is mostly flat, but with a "donut" ring of thickness around the outside.
I went out to the garage, unpiled sundry items from on top of the Mercedes engine, and pulled it away from the wall. I was then able to compare the original automatic transmission flywheel to the newly arrived manual tranny flywheel.
They are indeed the same diameter, have the same bolt hole pattern for the crankshaft, and the same teeth for the starter motor. However, the manual flywheel IS quite a bit thicker.
As far as I can tell, the clutchplate and cover thingamajigger go almost INSIDE the flywheel. Almost all manual transmission flywheels I have seen are pretty thin and flat. I guess I am also not sure if diesel flywheels are a little different than gas ones because of the differences in the engine characteristics?
I think the shape may also make up for the size of the torque-converter that was mounted on the automatic flywheel. That was a huge steel donut that was at least several inches thick and weighed quite a bit. If I weigh the automatic flywheel WITH the torque converter, it should weight about the same as the manual flywheel with a clutch and plate?
Anywhoo, I temporarily mounted up the new flywheel on the diesel engine crankshaft. All the holes line up right. I guess the next thing to do is to pester my buddy Rich to give me a hand figuring out what has to happen next.
[The new manual transmission flywheel temp. mounted on the engine.]
[The original S10 manual transmission flywheel to compare with]
I am (more than) a little lost when it comes to infernal combustion engines and mechanical doo-dads, but I will be very happy when I no longer have a spare truck and sedan sitting in my driveway, and I can use even less gasoline than I am right now.