Restoring Rusty

[Gregski]

needless to say this oil leak has been bothering me, so after I found some flanged bolts I went to town on attempting a solution

first I dry cleaned the oil puddles and yanked the old bolts out

then I goopedetized the new flanged bolts in a liberal coat of Permatex gasket sealer, an old engine builders trick

and then I torqued them back in to spec (as hard as you can, plus a quarter turn, as Mustang Frank used to say, ha ha) jk

[Gregski]

then I spick and spanned the bellhousing [again]

for the record the last mess took just over 1,000 miles of driving to get yucky that's when I did the new top end, so I will provide an update after the next blissful 1,000 miles

current mileage just over 16,300

[LT7A]

Originally Posted by Gregski

bonus points for proper use of the word "malodorous" had to look it up... ahem, for a friend

Hahaha, had me choking on my morning beverage. I hope that the new intake bolts do the trick. Did you pull the manifold and reseal or are you hoping the squinch power of the new bolts does the job?

[peabobble]

Watching your solution closely since I have the same dysfunction.

[Gregski]

well right after I scored the Mr. Gasket T handle, I happened to win the eBay auction for this shifter ball, well it ain't the $700 dollar one but it might do

looks just like the white one I already had but this one gots the right thread in it

[MikeB]

I have maybe $3k-$4k more in my 82 C10 than it's worth, but I'd bet you've outdone me!

My latest sink hole is dropped spring hangers and new rear springs (with all the associated bolts and bushings) and a cool non-step bumper with required brackets, bolts, etc. Around $800 all-in. Ka-ching!

I keep telling my wife that it keeps me out of the bars and strip clubs.

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by MikeB

I have maybe $3k-$4k more in my 82 C10 than it's worth, but I'd bet you've outdone me!

My latest sink hole is dropped spring hangers and new rear springs (with all the associated bolts and bushings) and a cool non-step bumper with required brackets, bolts, etc. Around $800 all-in. Ka-ching!

I keep telling my wife that it keeps me out of the bars and strip clubs.

funny shizwah you always make me laugh, chics dig the non-step bumper! LOL

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by peabobble

Watching your solution closely since I have the same dysfunction.

cool, well it looks like we won't have to wait 1,000 miles, seems like after about 100 miles the solution did not take on the driver side

hard to see in the second pic but the bell housing is wet on the driver side, my oil is nice and clean so it's hard to tell it's running down that side

That does it, we're doing an LS Swap!!! jk

[hatzie]

There are grade 8 bolts with an o-ring in a groove to fix this problem. Not sure where I saw them...
If you have a lathe you can make your own...

Just like a Harley. It's not leaking... it's marking its' territory.

[Gregski]

so the Saginaw 4 Speed Transmission rebuild kit showed up

[Gregski]

alright so the first thing I done did the night before was clean off an entire work bench, I don't know about you but I just function better in clean space, also I never rebuilt a transmission so I need all the help I can get and this ought to help me lay the parts out propper

[Gregski]

I was a hopin' the truck gods would smile upon me as I removed the side cover first with the gear box still attached to the engine, I figured what the hewk lets go for the easy win, maybe some spring or clamp or bracket fell off in there and is just bouncin' around

well no such luck, everything appeared in order, although at first I thought could that fork be broken like that, well no a quick stare and compare with the new one on All State Gear dot com revealed that's just how the 3-4 ? I think they mean 1-2 shift fork is

[Gregski]

even stuck my hand inside the belly of the beast and tried to wiggle things a bit but nothing out of the ordinary other than worn bearings and syncros I believe, I felt around in the puddle of left over gear oil for broken bits gear teeth etc, but nothin'

[Gregski]

so out she came, and I hoisted her up on the work bench for disassembly...

so happy I can yank the transmission out without disassembling my dual exhaust, saves so much time

[Gregski]

so took some pics of the guts, ie the orientation of the gears and syncros so I know how they all go back in

and after removing the input shaft housing, the speedo gear I just loosend the tail housing and call it a night on the account that I apparently do not own a set of snap ring pliers (shame on me)

[Gregski]

For The Record: this is the second GM aka Chevy transmission (the 833 overdrive one being the other) that aint all that popular, so finding info on how to rebuild a Saginaw 4 speed, or better yet how to take it apart took some doing, I saw a few nut job YouTube videos, most were for the 3 speed, and then this guy who calls himself Melrose RS saved the day on our sister Camaro forum How to disassemble a Saginaw transmission

[Gregski]

a quick stop at the local Napa and we were back in business

these babies were xpensive, $40 bucks, but sposely they are reversable, for in and out bound rings

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by hatzie

Input shaft center support needle bearing or the cluster gear needles make noise in the Saginaws.
GM only used two rows of needles inside the cluster gear in the Saginaw 3 & 4 speeds vs four rows in most other transmissions so the countershaft and cluster gear sometimes wear badly.
Not difficult to repair as long as the cluster gear isn't knackered.

Thank you, much appreciated as always, I aint no expert but to me it sounds like the noise I hear is the noise coming from the idler gear when it is engaged, of course I am testing with a try gear box, ie no gear oil so maybe with oil it don't sound like that, anyways that would be the noise of gear teeth meshing

[Gregski]

so equipped with my new tool, wrong tool mind you (it's not the type of snap ring pliers you need) I began to take this transmission apart

first I removed the four bolts that hold the input shaft housing to the front of the transmission (but we've been over this before when we swapped the smaller car style housing for the larger truck housing)

then I snapped out the ring that holds the input shaft bearing and that was a bear

for the record I was expecting / hoping for some slop in the front bearing but it felt nice and solid

[Gregski]

with the front bearing snap ring out, and the bearing off, I was able to separate the tail housing and pull the main shaft out of the back of the transmission case

[Gregski]

naturally the input shaft separated from the main shaft and half a dozen needle roller bearings were on the run, there are 14 total

Important Lesson Learned: I sorta knew this already but the eye opening experience is to discover that although the short input shaft is on the same plane as the main shaft ie they make one horizontal line, they are actually two separate spinning shafts independent of each other, don't laugh it's obvious to sum, but us idiot savants need time to digest, jk

I believe the 4th gear ie direct drive, so 1:1 ratio lives on the input shaft

[Gregski]

started taking the parts off the main shaft, I think this is the 3-4 slider

[Gregski]

Saginaw 4 Speed Transmission schematic from DriveTrain.com, wish it had parts names to go with it

it's really hard to find anything on these four speed Saginaw's seems like every time you search they want to shove Muncie pics at your, ha ha

so I had the second pic from AutoZone but deleted it cause they say it's a Muncie, but clearly it's my four speed Saginaw

[Gregski]

I think here I am taking off the 3rd gear, sorry about the shifting my transmission on the bench left to right and front to back it may be difficult to make sense of any of this

[Gregski]

at this point I didn't quite know what was holding the main shaft in the tail housing still, so I decided to remove the rear oil seal to see if I can find a snap ring in there, but nope, turns out that's not what hold the shaft in there

though I had a proper seal puller this seal was in there for 40 years and was too stubborn to go quietly into the night, so I had to tickle it a little bit