MV Tooth Extraction, at Weare Rally - Transmission Problems

[Phil Waterman]

Hi All

NOS transmission left Nashville, GA in a crate weight 131LBS arrived 4 days later in New Hampshire weight 85LBS and minus the crate. UPS can't explain what happened to the crate. Picture of how I found it sitting by the shop.

Transmission was insured for the full value/cost $1200.00 so I don't think UPS would have accepted it wrapped in plastic. Seller is annoyed because they spent the time and effort and charged me for it to build a crate. Had I been home when it was left by UPS I would have raised a stink right then. On the back of the shipping shipping label which had been incorporated into the plastic wrapping you could see the imprint of the wood it had been pealed off of.

Spent the day disassembling and cleaning the transmission, had to completely disassemble it to clean all the bearing which had been coated in a cosmoline type preservative when the transmission had been built. Oh what a joy to actually work on a New Transmission though. Kerosene and Gunk followed by washing in 180F water and the transmission is now clean inside and out. Had to clean the bearings so I could check the run out of the shafts.

My big concern was and is the input shaft (see photo) as it is only part that could be be damaged easily by dropping the transmission. Checking the Chevy heavy truck manual it gives run out or out of true "note more than .004 inch" when I checked the shaft on the new transmission it measures .010-.012 with dial indicator. All of it is in the first inch the part goes into the pilot bearing of the flywheel. One from the old transmission reads +/-.001" measuring it the same way. Only bearing that is not 100% smooth is the front input shaft bearing. The front bearing retainer that the throw out bearing assembly rides in and out is perfectly true.

I think UPS owes me the cost of new input shaft and bearing, if Obsolete Parts can supply a new shaft and bearing I would rather just replace this one instead of having to install it in the truck to see if the clutch disengages and correctly. Your thoughts?

Bob the gear ratios are all the same on the NOS transmission all the gear tooth counts match between the transmissions. Today I received the replacement 3rd gear so I should get through this with a NOS trans in the truck and a good repaired one on the shelf.

Cheers Phil

PS- Obsolete Parts is being really good to work with. The transmission originally came from a large surplus or parts dealer in the Toronto area some twenty years ago, no one remembers the name other than they are gone now.

[David Dunlop]

Sounds like your transmission may have come out of LEVY'S in Toronto originally. Too bad about the service you got from UPS. I have heard a growing number of complaints about them up this way over the past six or seven years. Mostly on a very disorganized customer service department and a feeling that behind the scenes, their left hand no longer seems to know what their right hand is doing anymore.

Good luck with the rebuild project. At the end of it you will have a happy running truck and a very reassuring spare, if ever needed again.

Cheers for now, David

[Bob Carriere]

Hard to explain how a transmission properly crated could accidentally wind up wrapped in plastic.... UPS should be responsible to both you and the seller.

Bob C

[Phil Waterman]

Hi All

In my normal try to do something once and get it right the transmission is cleaned painted, ready to install and tomorrow I'll put it in and connect it all all up and hopefully have a truck back on the road.

As said earlier I completely disassembled the transmission to clean the dried out grease out of the bearings and inspect all the bearings. Once the transmission was all assembled sealed up all the opening and shaft and put it into the blast cabinet to soda blast the for paint.

Of course had to stop to build a blasting cabinet, something I had been meaning to do. Nice to clean something and not have blast media all over the place.

Once the transmission was nice and cleaned washed it down with really hot water (170F) and primed and painted it. Transmission is now hanging under the truck ready to be hoisted into position in the morning.

Pictures and report on success or failure tomorrow, I hope.

Cheers Phil

[Bob Carriere]

Don't forget to include photos of the new blasting cabinet and the media used.

Did you ever figure out were the crate went??

Bob C

[Phil Waterman]

Hi All

As the old movie said "It's Alive". Finished installing the NOS transmission this morning and took it for a short drive. This transmission is much, much quieter than the one it replace probably the quietest of the three now. Only problem with that is the truck now has lots of new noises or more likely ones I could never hear before over the noise of the transmission.

Took it for couple miles then brought it back to the shop so could check for leaks, etc. This weekend will take it for a real drive. Shifting is still very stiff the detent balls are still hard to get out of the notches. Guess I'll just have to drive it to get it loosened up.

Little bit of gear whine in reverse and 1st, much less in 2nd and 3rd and totally silent in 4th.

As removing things like transmissions always goes faster than installing it took me about 3 hours to get the transmission out on the bench and 4-6 hours to get it from the bench to back installed in the truck. Because I did a couple of things in the wrong order and had to back track it probably took me 2 hours longer than it should. While the whole process, in particular what I did in the wrong order was fresh in my mind I sat down and wrote it all up 30 steps removing and about the same installing. Will add them to my web site with pictures at some point.

To your question Bob about prototype blasting cabinet, I'll post some pictures and design comments soon, think I'll start a separate thread for that. Blasting media for now is sodium bicarbonate wanted something that would take of paint and dirt but not damage the steel. Primarily for the Lincoln restoration. My problem with the standard commercial cabinets is they are too small. I wanted something big prototype is 48"x32"x32". But the big issue was I wanted 100% containment of the the dust.

UPS is playing dumb about the crate, when I called them the response was well sometimes we'll remove a crate and repackage if we can't get it on the truck. I think this is double speak for when we bust the crate we pretend it never had a crate and hope you don't notice. Which is kinda dumb on insured packages, you think they try and claim it was poorly packaged.

By the way Jim Tygart's Obsolete Chevy Parts has been great to deal with even sent me an extra set of transmission gaskets as I was disassembling the unit. The Gasket Set is from an outfit called Bestgasket.com though they don't sell direct they sell through companies like Obsolete. What is kind of interesting is that both sets of gaskets that Obsolete sent me are dated Jul-13 so they are freshly made. Bestgasket site has a link to where to buy. Quick look at what they carry and it looks like they maybe a good resource. One thing I like is they make there own gaskets with Made in the USA on the package.

[Phil Waterman]

Hi All

Well today got back to working in the shop, and the project was to press apart the lower cluster to replace the gear with broken tooth. I had some real concern about how difficult it was going to be to press off the 3 different gears and spacers on the lower cluster. There is nothing in any of my manuals about replacing these gears, yet it must have been common because I have found NOS individual replacement gears. The gears appeared to be a press fit on the cluster shaft with 4 pins running down the shaft in groves, with each of the gears having matching groves. My fear had been that these gears were shrunk onto the shaft.

To make the discription to follow here is the exploded parts view.


The first photo shows my simple bearing press unit nothing fancy I've used it for years and because it works never have gotten around to replacing it with a real bearing press. The big surprise was that the Counter Shaft Drive Gear (the first to be removed) came off with relatively little force. As each gear and spacer was removed I marked it with order of position. The rest of the gears came off as equally well with no extreme pressure from the little jack needed, in fact pressure was so light that it didn't even mark the wooden blocks.

What became obvious once I started to reassemble was that I should have marked all the gear as to which way they faced. As (all but one of) the gears have a beveled in the direction they engage, the other side being flat cut. Of course started off by putting on the wrong way around (2nd photo. Back to the house to print out a photo of the cluster I'd taken earlier on this photo I added ARROWS showing the correct direction for the gears (3rd photo).

Back to reassembly, the gears are not a hand fit but when heated 200F they are very nearly a drop on fit. (4th photo) Used old electric fry pan and IR Gun to heat all the gears to 200F then with a pair of thick gloves it was out of the frying pan and on to the shaft.

So replacing gears on the lower cluster turns out to be no big deal.

Cheers Phil