Restoring Rusty

[Gregski]

here I show you that the counter shaft is keyed or at least has a thingie thingie that prevents it from spinning or at least from getting pressed in too far

[Gregski]

and here is the counter shaft gear cluster and it's 54 roller bearings, 27 in the front and 27 in the rear

note the missing washer on the left, the top row is the used washers/spacers the bottom are the new replacement ones - I did install one from the rebuild kit when I reassembled it and it fit great no drag or nothing

[Gregski]

I put all 54 used counter shaft roller needle bearings into a zip loc bag so that I wouldn't mix them up with the brand new ones

looks like they give you 1 extra one in the rebuild kit so make sure you count them out ahead of time

[Gregski]

after wiping the cluster gear clean and dry you need some sort of grease to keep the roller bearings put, I'm sure this ain't the "right" kind, but we are using such a small dab of it that it really don't matter, plus I promised my dad I would use up all this grease we bought 35 years ago before I die, ha ha

[Gregski]

not sure you can tell in this pic but the counter shaft had some slight scaring on it, if I had a replacement one I would have swapped it out, but I didn't so I smoothed it out the best I could with some super fine sand paper and back in it went, Roadkill style

[Gregski]

so after spending $40 bucks at Napa on the wrong type of snap ring pliers, I went to O'Reilly's and spent $15 on the right ones, these they call Lock Ring Pliers learn and live people, learn and live

[Gregski]

and with that the reassembly got under way... as they say in your favorite Hayne's or Chilton's manual "Installation is the opposite of removal"

[Gregski]

speedo gear went back on

[Gregski]

gooped the input shaft and shoved the 14 new bearings in from the rebuild kit

[Gregski]

my first attempt was to install the input shaft and the main shaft without the tail housing, that failed cause I could not get the tail housing back on after that, needed a third arm for that large snap ring to expand it over the rear bearing, oh well

[Gregski]

so got the new rear seal installed in the tail housing by "gently" tapping the tail housing on the garage floor - shhhh don't tell

[Gregski]

so test fitted the new tail housing gasket, as it appears to only go on one way, and then I gooped it with that red devil's snot so it would stay in place

Note: the bottom tail housing bolt is not in a blind hole, so goop it with red snot and also you can use this to drain the transmission fully, you probably all knew that but I didn't ha

[MikeB]

I like the natural light available behind your workbench! If that was my garage, those blinds would have a trendy mottled look from chemical and petrochemical splatters.

[Gregski]

was looking forward to swapping the rubber O-ring on the speedo bullet but the one provided was a bit too loose and way too skinny, Mini Epic Fail

[Gregski]

as a self proclaimed master transmission rebuilder now, I like to keep myself humble by cleaning my own bolts

[Gregski]

Cause if you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it
If you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it
Don't be mad once you see that he want it
If you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it

yeah, I liked the input bearing so I decided to put a ring on it, ha ha

found that putting the bearing loosely on the input shaft helped me align the main shaft easier since it now had the tail housing attached to it and was way heavier

[Gregski]

then it was time for wax on wax off with the old crusty side cover gasket

[Gregski]

anatomy of the Saginaw 4 Speed side cover, and the smoking gun, or the missing smoking gun

I mentioned this in a post a ways above, I think the reason my transmission is making noise is because I am missing a tinie winnie metal ball the size of a little bearing or bee bee, it is called the detent ball and it lives between a spring that sticks out of a hole in the side cover and the reverse shifter, when you shift into reverse you should feel it snap into place, that should lock the idler gear in place and prevent it from sliding back and forth on its shaft freely, I believe it is currently sliding and hitting the teeth of the neighbooring gears ever so slightly giving off that loose bolt bouncing around the case sound

does that second divet / hole for the detent ball in the reverse shifter seem defective, appears like that's how the ball slipped out possibly

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by MikeB

I like the natural light available behind your workbench! If that was my garage, those blinds would have a trendy mottled look from chemical and petrochemical splatters.

Ha ha, that natural light sucks, I have to close those blinds any time I have to take a pic or I get the shot totally back lit and you can't see the subject, and so the white handle to close the blinds has "a trendy mottled look from chemical and petrochemical" fingerprints, also having those silly windows there prevents me from putting up shelves, yes we can file this under First World Problems

[Gregski]

and here is a dude on eBay selling just what I need a Saginaw spring and a detent ball

[Gregski]

hre is another dude on eBay selling all three shifters, as we can see that reverse shifter also has an underdefined detent ball hole, though not as bad as mine

[Gregski]

got the new rubber O-rings on the 1-2 and the 3-4 shifter levers

[Gregski]

Found this Saginaw 4 Speed parts diagram with a legend, yay, on AutoZone's website although they have it listed under a Muncie but clearly it is my Saginaw 4 speed transmission.

[Gregski]

are you thinking what I'm thinking

man it was just a bit too small

[Jake Wade]

I am really digging the rebuild. Good job!