A Fortunate Mistake

Two days ago, my dad helped me shop for a set of new clutch for my 4A-GE and some other stuff (thanks Dad!). Since i thought that my smallport 4A-GE came from an AE92 GTI Corolla, i asked him to get the clutch set for said vehicle model. After he handed the stuff over to the mechanic, it turned out that the clutch cover didn't match my flywheel! So dad had to go back to the shop and get the correct one. To avoid repeating the same mistake, the mechanic took the flywheel off so that dad can bring it and match the clutch set directly at the spare-parts shop. The mechanic was surprised when he found that the flywheel stud bolts were very short and that they only have a few millimeters of thread left to bolt into the crankshaft. Here's what i am talking about..

It certainly is not a good idea having such short bolts keeping your heavy flywheel attached, you'll break the bolts in no time or even worse, rip the threads on the crankshaft. If my dad had bought the correct clutch set, the mechanic wouldn't have unbolted the flywheel and he wouldn't have found the bolt problem. A fortunate mistake, indeed. Hence, flywheel bolts were jotted down the shopping list also and so dad went back to the shop.

Another thing added to the shopping list was this..

I needed to get the sensor on the right which is the water temp sensor. The old one was missing the connector socket and so i needed to replace it. The part number for 4A-GE smallport is 89422-20010.

While we wait for dad to return from shopping, here's what i promised you earlier, comparison shot between my new and old radiator.

It's clearly wider and, you can't see it but, thicker also.

Look, dad's back! He brought good news and bad news. The good news was that he got the clutch set and water temp sensor. Here you go.

As you can see, the clutch cover now fits the the flywheel. Oddly enough, this clutch set is for Toyota Corona '83-'89 production. How it fits my smallport flywheel is still beyond me as said Corona was equipped with 4A-C, the same engine as our Charmant, and not 4A-GE. Even stranger that when the seller tried KE70 clutch cover at the shop, it fits also.

Below you can see the new water temp sensor.


The bad news was that he couldn't get longer stud bolt of the same head size. The ones he got have slightly bigger heads although the length was correct. Below you can see the old bolt on the left and the one dad got on the right.

See how the head is slightly bigger? This unfortunately prevents the bolt to be used as the spacing is too narrow and the bolt head would bump each other. Here you can see that the length is correct compared to the old one.

The bolts dad got should fit perfectly if they are to be used for 4A-C flywheel which has only 6 bolts hence more spacing. Sadly my 4A-GE has 8 bolts and the spacing is too narrow for them to be used.

With the stud bolts and some sensors still missing like the knock sensor shown below, another visit to the parts shop is still necessary. I am guessing 3-4 more visits still needs to be done before i can actually finish the engine swap.


Last thing i want to show you is that the 6001 bearing i bought fits. This confirms that you should use that size if you're using smallport also. Also on the left side of the pic shown below, you can see that the hole for the starter motor is on the correct side now which is on the exhaust side. The sandwich plate was taken from my old 4A-C and this proves that you can use it directly for the 4A-GE.