Restoring Rusty

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by Jake Wade

I am really digging the rebuild. Good job!

Thank you, I am walking around with my chest puffed out I am so proud of myself, even if it don't fix the noise, lol, I have learned so much... highly recommend it, on a manual transmission that is, I would not touch a Turbo 350 automatic with a 10 foot pole

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by rusty76

Well done. If one thing racing taught me over the years is that just because you haven’t done it or seen it doesn’t mean you can’t do it.

ah nice to hear from one of The Usual Suspects, aint that the truth Keyser!

[rusty76]

Looks like you are getting it done. Guy I know rebuilt the trans in his van. It was an automatic. Drove from North Carolina to Colorado the next week. If he could do it you can too. Nice work.

[Gregski]

Ace is the place...

looks like the bearing we need is a 5/16" diameter and will set us back 35 pence, so I put 5 on lay-away as they tend to wonder off in my domicile

[Gregski]

and just like that we was in business, fit like a glove

[Gregski]

since moving the reverse lever too far passed neutral would allow the bearing to pop out I decided to mount the shifter on the transmission on the workbench and make sure the shifting rods were properly adjusted

I was surprised to see that this Hurst shifter unlike my other one does not have threaded holes for bump stops to and fro

[Gregski]

since it was difficult to shift through all the gears on the work bench I decided to build a cockpit simulator to scale

here I am showing you the Crew Chief View, the Cockpit View, and the Bird's Eye View

note my trusty co-pilot Dusty in the stand by position

[Gregski]

since we had a streak of 100* F days I decided to put the transmission tunnel cover back on, as you would be surprised how much heat you get coming up from that large opening in the floor

this required some modification of the trans tunnel cover, and then some more... modification, ha ha

my motto is cut twice, and skip the measuring

[Gregski]

looks decent though the Saginaw shifter sits further back than the New Process 833 did, so much so that it required notching the trans tunnel cover as well as the floor, wasn't too happy about that

anyway I will be welding up the original SM465 hole as well as patching up the elongated part due to the 833 being there first, though not sure how I am going to mount the rubber gator on all these creases now

[Gregski]

Yeah, yeah, looks ok, but how does it drive? How does it shift? Did you get rid of the noise?

So did two test drives a couple hours apart. On the first test drive still had some noise similar like before the rebuild just not as bad, not as loud. So I figured maybe we need to give it time for the transmission sauce to slush around sum more, so I took it for a second test drive, and similar results. Better than before the rebuild but not quiet by any means. For those of you wondering, I am running SAE 80W-90 gear oil with no Snake Oil additives.

Sounds like this dude had the same problem 9 years ago... SAGINAW TRANNY "GEAR RATTLE"? on H.A.M.B. and those guys know their shizwa, but of course no solution has been posted

[dragonball98312]

Is the saginaw a temporary replacement for the a833 to get rebuilt or a replacement? Did you not like the a833 if so? I have one that im looking forward to installing, someday lol. Curious which you prefer

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by dragonball98312

Is the saginaw a temporary replacement for the a833 to get rebuilt or a replacement? Did you not like the a833 if so? I have one that im looking forward to installing, someday lol. Curious which you prefer

that is a very good question, I had multiple thoughts cross my mind, I like to experiment so I wanted to try all or some of the 60's 4 speeds, like the Muncie, but it proved to be too expensive at the moment, as hot rodding is in vogue and prices have run away from us OGs, lol, so I found this Saginaw for like $200 with linkage (couldn't pass it up) so I thought throw in the Saginaw, drive it, and yes take your time rebuilding the 833

but then guess what the new girl agrees with me more as far as the gearing is concerned, I found myself leaving the 833 in third more and more as of late ie 1:1 drive to put my new cam and heads in their power band, most "performance" cams start at 2,500 RPM and go up to like 5,500 plus RPM, don't get me wrong on the freeway 4th gear ie the Over Drive on that 833 is amaze balls, but how often do I go camping, and drive 90 miles on the freeway, not often, most of the time its city driving or short bursts on the freeway

so the 833 is a good transmission give it a go, but the Saginaw is greatly underestimated especially with "hear say" on the Internets of how weak it is (um ironically iron case not aluminum, which is good, duh the 833 guys upgrade from aluminum to iron when they want to beef theirs up) and not all Saginaws were created equal, look above at the notches on the input shaft thread, they came with like four or five different gear combos, I think the zero notches on the input shaft is the strongest transmission so that's what I luckily ended up with. They even came with an OD option I hear.

either box is way better than the SM465 granny low gear that came with our trucks, I know some off roader 4x4 guys will argue with me, but if you like to drive off of the farm every once in a while and off of the dirt roads (ha ha) whilst towing a flat trailer full of hay stacks, and instead you like pavement under your tires, the Saginaw or the 833 are the way to go, unless of course you can land a Muncie or a TKO 5 speed, ha ha

oh and if and when I do go back to the 833 I am also dorppin' in the stock hydraulic clutch bell housing and hydraulic clutch off of our mid 80s GM trucks cause I absolutely can't stand the Mickey Mouse Z bar setup, it's problematic and yes I rebuilt it and have it adjusted properly

good luck, g

[LT7A]

Wow man, way to get after it! To be honest though, I really enjoy your rebuilds and write-ups so I dumped a little Smooth-B-Gon in that Saginaw case. Heh heh.

Do you think that what you're experiencing at this point is just tolerances that have opened up due to use and age?

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by LT7A

Wow man, way to get after it! To be honest though, I really enjoy your rebuilds and write-ups so I dumped a little Smooth-B-Gon in that Saginaw case. Heh heh.

ha ha, that was you?

Originally Posted by LT7A

Do you think that what you're experiencing at this point is just tolerances that have opened up due to use and age?

Bro you always ask the right questions. Yeah I think so, I called Allstate Gear, the place where I got my rebuild kit to ask their Tech Support for some advice and without hesitation the guy recommended I call Jon Bergeron at Kajun Enterprises in Texas, which I did and Jon said he hasn't worked on a Saginaw in a while and was trying to get out of that business, he really did not have VooDoo advice for me as I was hoping. So then I called Mike at Transmission Warehouse literally walking distance from my house who said sometimes they cut off the sprocket off of one of the gears, it was over the phone and I think he said 4th gear but he may have been thinking something else, which got me thinking so I did some Web sole searching...

[Gregski]

I hope this is the last post on this topic for a while as I think we are all tired of me beating this horse to death, but check this out

I came across this wonderful blog from a gentlemen who bought his step fathers 1967 Camaro which came with a Saginaw 4 speed L30/M20 1967 Camaro

Now he calls it the "M20" which I could have sworn was a Muncie designation where as the Saginaws were the M26 & M27 but anyways, check out the pictures of his internals compared to those of mine

[Gregski]

His 1st-Reverse-2nd Gear Slider (second gear looking thing in the top row from the right, out of the 5 gear things there) does not have the sprocket (on the left side of the straight cut gear) like mine does, this part appears to be a Muncie part

his pic on top

mine on the bottom

[Gregski]

Also his has a much narrower idle gear, the straight cut gear all by itself on the bottom slider, see how mine in the second pic is much much wider than that, it's almost twice the width, was this a clever workaround to prevent the gears from rubbing against it's adjacent gears causing the rattling noise I have been fighting

[Gregski]

also if you watch the following teaser YouTube video on how to rebuild the Saginaw 4 speed, and pause it at 23 seconds in you will see the same skinny style reverse and idle gear setup

Saginaw 4-Speed Rebuild - by teachmecars.com

[Gregski]

Truck doing truck things...

[Gregski]

rear window sliders are not just for making rattling and squeaking noises, they convert your short bed to a long bed in a snap

[Gregski]

tired of trippin' on things on your garage floor? - Go Vertical!

[Gregski]

this is a 10x10 tough? shed, inside it... 100 Luxurious square feet of square body parts... and among them... our next project!

[Gregski]

setting up the staging area, these Mexican Home Depot saw horses would be fabulous if I was 4' 8" ha ha

[Gregski]

and the patient is on the table, in order to keep the scratchability down to a minimum we are going to work on it's belly first

for those of you keeping meticulous notes, this hood came with the step side bed from the same donor truck

[Gregski]

let's cover some basic hood anatomy in the unlikely event we'll want to put some of these bits back on later