Saginaw Transmission/Clutch problems

[Sicboy]

I have a '66 Chevy long be pickup with a 327 and a saginaw 4sp. About two years ago I had the tranny rebuilt at the same time the engine was rebuilt. After the tranny was installed, with a new clutch, throwout bearing and roller pilot bearing, I was not able to downshift into 2nd...it would grind. Everything else was fine. Three months ago, I pulled the tranny and took it back to the mechanic that rebuilt it. He said that the synchro had broke. He repaired it and I reinstalled the tranny. It worked great for the past three months, until today. I was at a stop light in neutral and when I tried to shift it into 1st gear, it would not go in at first. After a few tries, it finally went in. When I pulled away, the clutch pedal began vibrating very loudly. When I pushed the clutch pedal, the vibrating would stop. No problem shifting into 2nd. When I tried to shift into 3rd, it would grind a little. When I shifted it to 4th, there was no 4th. After a few throws back and forth, 4th would finally engage. Every time I try shifting into 4th, this happens. No matter what gear it was in, the clutch pedal vibrates very loudly. When I depress the clutch, nothing feels out of the ordinary. What could be wrong?

[Sicboy]

Anybody???

This morning, I checked the linkage and adjusted the clutch. I'm still having the same problem. The clutch pedal still rattles loudly and I can find 4th about 1 in 20 tries. Even when I manually put the tranny in 4th from underneath, I still get nothing...most of the time. FYI, I have no problem getting it into 1st, 2nd, 3rd and reverse.

[Patina]

First off, Get a new Transmission Guy!

The pedal vibrating could be traced back to a couple of things.
Throw-out bearing bad, Bent clutch fork, Bent input shaft, or you could have something wrong with your pressure plate. Either way it has to be something connected to your clutch pedal assembly to cause a vibration like that. It could also be your clutch linkage resting on your exhaust!

As for not being able to get in to 4th gear, it has to be something with your shifter or clutch engagement or an internal transmission problem. I would bring it to another trans. shop for a second opinion!

Good luck.

[bama63]

pull the trans and check the front bearing, if the bearing is bad it will allow the main drive to slide back just enough to not allow 4th gear engagement and also will have the symptoms you described with your clutch

[Sicboy]

So the mechanic who rebuilt the tranny says that the input shaft bearing, along with various other parts, is shot. He claims the reason is that my bell housing is a truck bell housing and the tranny is from a car. He says that the hole in the bell housing is too large for the tranny. Can this be the case or is it a line of bull ****?

[jocko]

Absolutely could be the case. You can not run a trans with a small index ring on the bearing retainer in a bell housing with the larger index ring opening. The 4 mounting bolts are not sufficient to locate the trans in the properly aligned location. You CAN run a trans / bell index mismatch, but not for long at all before you burn up input shaft bearings, the pilot bearing, and a host of other things. That could be your root cause of the problems you're seeing.

EDIT - did the mechanic actually SEE your bell housing? The big hole index he's referring to is larger than 5" - the small index on your trans's bearing retainer is less than 5" - if this is the case, then I'd have to agree with the mech. if he's just guessing you have a large hole bellhousing - you need to confirm that you have one. not all trucks had the large hole bell.

[jocko]

to be more exact -
the small dia index ring is 4.686"
the big dia index ring is 5.125"

[Sicboy]

Yea, we matched up the bearing retainer to the hole on the bell housing. The hole was about 1/2" bigger than the retainer. In search of a Muncie now.

[Blue666]

I agree with Patina!

This was really an easy catch if the mechanic was paying attention. He should have caught this during the rebuild. Switching out the Bell housing would have prevented the early failure.

[redneck6]

munchie is a small bearing retainer as well unless you are refering to a sm465

[padresag]

Originally Posted by Sicboy

Yea, we matched up the bearing retainer to the hole on the bell housing. The hole was about 1/2" bigger than the retainer. In search of a Muncie now.

it is only the 68 and up bell housing(for the sm365 trans) that is larger in the frt brg retainer area. 2 things that you can do is to either get a 63-67 bellhousing or just have a machine shop make up a spacer bushing to fit the smaller brg retainer to the housing
ron

[Sicboy]

Originally Posted by padresag

it is only the 68 and up bell housing(for the sm365 trans) that is larger in the frt brg retainer area. 2 things that you can do is to either get a 63-67 bellhousing or just have a machine shop make up a spacer bushing to fit the smaller brg retainer to the housing
ron

Guess I forgot to follow up this thread. I used a spacer from Novak Conversions, mated to a saginaw I found locally on CL.