Transmission is down and out.
@Capt Ron showed up a little after 10 this morning. I spent 20 minutes moving cars around and the trans was on the ground by noon.
It’s everything I expected. Input bearing is loose and sloppy. The loose input shaft hogged out the inside of the integrated release bearing. It’s toast. I wiped my finger though the bottom of the output hosing and was rewarded with some jumbo metal flake silver paint like mess.
Release bearing carnage.
Oddly the two bottom bolts for the trans to bell housing are MIA. Uppers were present but at less than spec for torque.
At this point I’m not sure which came first. The trans was not loose to the bell housing until we took the cross member off. It’s fairly sandwiched in when everything is in place but I’m going to pull the bell and the clutch to replace the pilot bushing as cheap insurance. Clutch fingers are not chewed up at all. So I think it’s ok to reuse.
My tranny builder and I had a misunderstanding and built me a 29 spline Dodge version. Noticed when I went to pick it up yesterday.
He was really good about it and will have a Chevy version ready by Tuesday. He brought me in and gave me the nickel tour of the shop. Manual trans and t-cases all over. 4500’s, 5600’s, zf’s and Getrags. Said he had built and sold 45 nv4500s in the last few months alone. We walked through and I pointed out an early GM 4500 with the 465 style shifter. I mentioned it would be cool to have the early 6.34:1 first gear ratio over the 5.61:1 mine has and retain the bolt on shifter assembly of the later style units. He looked at me and said sure we can do that. I was always under the impression that could not be done, but he assured me he totally can. So that’s what he’s going to do.
I’m stoked. Fresh trans, and a little more gear. It would bump my crawl ratio up from 62:1 to 70:1. It pales to a doubler but really will aid on the steep downhill runs where it seemed like to be lacking.
Big thanks to Ron for swinging by this morning and helping me pull the trans and get it loaded in my truck.