MV Tooth Extraction, at Weare Rally - Transmission Problems

[Phil Waterman]

Hi All

Title caught your eye? Well it was not my tooth that needed extraction but BEAUTY my 1942 Pattern 13 C60S that just had a tooth extraction. On the way to our MV Clubs 26th Annual Summer Rally, BEAUTY developed a new load ticking or tapping sound when I down shifted down into 3rd gear. This was a new sound as I had the truck out the previous weekend for an antique car show and had not noticed any noise, could feel a little vibration as well in the gear shift lever. As the truck was all loaded and had the generator in tow with every thing I needed for the week at the Rally I did the brave or stupid thing and kept going and just didn’t use 3rd gear. Having learned to not try and fix things when tired or hot and definitely to not go taking things apart until thinking through the problem, I parked the truck were it would could sit for the week of the Rally next to the registration tent and went home to come back in the morning with my HUP.

In the morning when I got back I had a plan of attack:

• First confirm that the noise/problem was only present 3rd gear. Quick drive around the field confirmed that.
• Drain the transmission through a filter to check for partials. Did this with the improvised funnel with a paint filter and a magnet. Very little in the way of metal or any kind of dirt in the gear oil. Gear oil was last changed 4 years ago when I changed engines. (Plastic liquor bottles make handy disposable funnels)
• Inserted one of those extendable magnet wands through the drain plug hole and Extracted One Gear Tooth. No other debris came out, which was a good thing.
• Removed the PTO side cover plate to look for damage. Up until this point I figured I three options if everything was OK, plan A accept for 3rd gear I’d just clean out the case replace the gasket, PTO cover and refill the transmission and drive home at the end of the Rally not using 3rd gear. Or plan B go home remove the transmission from my other truck and do a field replacement of the transmission. Plan C was go home on a wrecker hook.
• It turned out that the tooth had broken off 3rd gear of the lower cluster and luckily just dropped to the bottom of the transmission with out doing any other damage. So went with Plan A

The trip home was uneventful in fact it turned out that I drove most of the way only using 2nd and 4th gears. What is strange is I think I actually got better gas mileage coming home than driving over.

Returning home I loaded more of the gear for “camping” and the rally in to the HUP than it had coming to the Rally and it actually seamed much happier, smoother riding, and quieter with a full load of gear than running empty.

I’ll be posting more information on the Rally in the near future and will post the link to photos and videos here on MLU.


Cheers Phil