Transmission Assembly

Assembling the internals actually went quite a bit faster than taking it apart. I bought a kit that came with bearings, gaskets and synchro rings, and once the gear pack was assembled, the tolerances were even in spec! Of course, I managed to put the tip of the input shaft through my old phone while using it for reference pictures. Nothing comes without a price, I guess.

And that’s pretty much how it sat for a couple of weeks. We were out of town for the whole fourth of July week visiting in-laws (I still can’t get over the fact that I have in-laws), my family (out-laws?) and spending an extra night in Tucson to see Blue Oyster Cult with the Orion and his son. This was a lot of fun, but didn’t exactly speed the transmission project along.

In an attempt to keep the gasket surfaces clean, I have spent most of the rest of my time cleaning parts. Many hours of oven cleaner soaks, chiseling, scrubbing and hits with the wire wheel finally resulted in mostly clean parts – at least clean where they need to be. Not having bits of 30 year old muddy grease get into everything will hopefully help out.

As it sits now, the casing is together minus the bell housing, the transfer case is attached, and best of all, I can spin the input shaft while shifting gears and it doesn’t bind up like it was before I took it apart. I hope it continues to work once installed. But if it leaks, I swear I’ll never bother cleaning anything ever again!