Autoclutch
You may not want to speak unkindly about the Whizzer autoclutch, but the truth of the matter is, they deserve it, for the simple reason that, in my opinion, the majority of the clutches sold were defective. My first one had about 500 mi on it before the needle bearings etched deeply into the soft cast shell. Called Whizzer and they said that would be too many miles to fall under warranty (it's expected to fail in 500 mi?). On the next autoclutch I purchased, which also had a soft cast iron bearing surface (filed easily), I installed the inner bearing race (sleeve) to correct the soft material issue only to find that the casting wasn't evenly filled during the pouring operation, and that there was a wide low unfilled void on the internal vertical surface of the shell that resulted in the clutch being out of balance which in turn caused excessive vibration. The solution was to drill and add metal to the shell to balance it. So I'm 2 for 2. I've yet to ever hear from anyone that had a properly hardened center spindle on the shell, but I don't doubt that at least one might have somehow been created along the way. Of course back when I mentioned this at the time I was the only one that had ever had such a complaint (that sort of summarizes the majority of my mechanical experience in life, where way too often I'm the only one that's ever confronted the peculiar problem of the moment - right)! Sound familiar?
So that's my experience with Whizzer autoclutches. It irks me no end that someone would produce a defective product. Shame on the design group for being clueless on both mechanical design and compatibility of materials (bearings, races, and friction materials), shame on the manufacturer for building a defective part, and lastly shame on Whizzer for passing it off on the public as a functional part. That in my book is dishonest. If you've got a bad part, you scrap the defective lot or rework it, correct the design or manufacturing deficiency, test the new product to verify that it functions, then offer it for sale. But given the other design deficiencies all over the engine why would we be the least bit surprised by the clutch issue? After all, who do we think we are expecting a good part when we pay a fair price for something?
