It happened!
I finally saw my car again.
As mentioned, it’s been well over 6 months since I’ve seen my car, and unfortunately, virtually nothing has been done.
For this trip, I had 4 things on my to-do list.
1. 5-speed Transmission Rebuild
First and foremost, this trip was to tackle the 5-speed rebuild.
To start with, all credit goes to Andy for convincing me to even consider tackling this thing. Andy lives about 15 minutes from my brother’s shop and months ago, he insisted that I don’t gamble on the transmission as-is and offered to help me rebuild this thing. I can say that he is one of the nicest, most patient guys ever, He has a fair bit of experience, has done about 6 of these boxes (I’m now qualified to call transmissions ‘boxes’ since I’ve handled transmission guts… watch out Premo and Petterson).
Andy kindly worked with me on scheduling between his summer/fall plans, and set aside Thursday and Friday to get this thing done. Well, it didn’t quite go as scheduled, but we did get it done.
In addition to Andy, I reached out to many of the Roadster Illuminati… and I have never, ever received more help and advice from people I only know recently. This 311s/Roadster community is unbelievable in its willingness to help out some nervous, over-thinking, know-nothing newbie. It was really amazing, a bit overwhelming, and ultimately humbling.
The transmission background: Although I bought it from Mike Young, who said it was a good working Warner (But NO guarantees), the condition was really a complete unknown. So I spent a few weeks ahead of time procuring most every part I might need. I bought the full gasket and seal kit from Dean - who made sure I got it in time, all new brass synchros from Ross Mullen, who’s always a huge help, and sourced all of the bearings with the help of Unkl Pat and Mike Firestone, advice from those guys as well as Mike Young, Dave Premo, Mike Kerr, Dave Witt, and a huge save from Steve Petterson. I can’t thank these guys enough. Such a gigantic help.
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So… Andy and I broke into it on Thursday afternoon and had it mostly torn apart by the end of the day. We could tell that it had been rebuilt (glue and gasket seal), and it seemed as though it was recent, but what we found was that it looked to be in pretty good shape - no busted teeth, no rodents, no loose ground wires, no bad 02 sensors... everything looked great. Before this, the only transmission images I’d seen were from horror stories. This was not that.
Major points of interest:
A. It was indeed a Warner. Phew.
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B. Only one nut on the 5th gear, but plenty of threads for a second. Hmmm. And the single nut was not very tight… yikes… glad we dug in, could have been a time bomb???
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C. Splined 5th gear. Woohoo!
D. 5th gear servo synchro appeared to be very lightly worn on one side. Nice.
E. Bearings all seemed tight.
F. It just looked good.
On Friday afternoon and after a broken counter shaft bolt delay on Saturday morning, we replaced synchros, bearings, gaskets, and seals.
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Then, the biggest question mark, and the source of a TON of overthinking and stress, was the infamous “How to keep the 5th gear nut from backing off?†issue.
Since I know nothing, and never want to rebuild a ‘box’ again, I over-researched the shit out of this. I asked/bugged everyone, posted questions here… and it seems most everyone has a unique (and valid!) solution for this. So I waffled back and forth on what I wanted to do, and, more importantly what I could actually do, given the time frame. A bit of bush mechanics considering the schedule.
Poor Andy, he tolerated my indecisiveness like a champ… but I think I got close to the end of his rope. Pretty sure I saw him think about dropping a hammer on my foot.
I won’t go into all of the ideas/opinions/options, but my one demand was to have a jam nut. However, with only two days in rural CA, what to do? I called Steve Petterson, who’s only about an hour away, and he hooked me up! I picked a jam nut up on Sunday after fishing with my nephew.
Then Andy and I got back in there Monday and finished it up.
Regarding my final solution - I was told by some that the solution was “Paranoid overkillâ€, and by others that it “Just won’t work, periodâ€, and everything in between. Since I HAD to get this done in a day, I did get some begrudged consensus that this was the best I could do, and so… My brother was able to resurface the thrust washer to perfectly flat, so we had clearance, Clarence. We tightened the main nut and kept proper endplay. We then marked it, backed the main nut off, put one drop of red Loctite on, then re-torqued. Double checked endplay. Then we put 3 drops of Loctite and tightened the jam nut tight to the main nut. Nearly pulled the bench over, so it’s tight. I’m confident in this, so fingers crossed, positive thoughts, and if it fails you will know. Andy has run a similar build for 30,000 miles.
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Monday night and Tuesday morning I spent cleaning up the outside of the transmission. For a bit of it I used a huge angle grinder/wire wheeler. The thing weighs 10+ pounds and is a beast to hold onto. The real fun was when the handle broke and the whole thing jumped off the bench and nearly castrated me… pardon my ugly belly button, but this is the result. It’s been a week and the wound is still killing me. So, that was fun.
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As always, I tried to feed my hosts well. Thursday night was fresh Bluefin and Yellowtail sashimi. Then Venison burgers. Then venison backstrap. All were sensational.
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I can’t tell you how generous it was of Andy and his lovely wife to open their house and spend the time helping me out. Outstanding people, and I’m so grateful. This was an enormous milestone, and I could not have done it without them.
Next episode: Items 2, 3, and 4 and I’ll probably think of something else.