File under WTF

I needed to get the clutch and pressure plates out of the flywheel. I plan on mounting a BMW R1150 Clutch pack for a number of reasons. I thought I could get away with drilling out a few riveted pieces and it would come apart. The smart clutch isn't a serviceable item. Mercedes intends for the entire flywheel and clutch assembly to be replaced as one unit and therefore there is no way to disassemble it. I can'tt even figure out how they got it together. There are no bolts or weld marks, and there is no room anywhere that I can see to get tooling in to the assembly. My best guess is that it is in fact pressed together. The only clue to that is that the starter ring gear appears to be presses on to the cast iron flywheel so maybe they have a process for pressing the outer plate (the one that holds the spring diaphragm) over the clutch into the flywheel.

God I love my plasma cutter. It stank up the shop sump tin awful, and I’m still wearing my respirator 30 minutes later, but it made quick and easy work of the assembly without so much as scratching the flywheel. I thought if I cut it apart that it would offer some clue as to how it went together in the first place, but no. Now I have to find a big enough lathe so that I can turn back the outer part of the flywheel and remove what’s left of the outer clutch parts. Then I need to figure out how to mount the BMW clutch pack but I don’t think that’s going to be all the difficult. Now where have I heard that before?