Yeah, Yeah.... I bought this Atlas box about a year ago, and I'm just getting around to installing it. Too much other stuff to deal with first.
Anyway, this morning I gathered up my TH400, AA intermediate adapter and the Atlas and starting doing a "dry assembly" just to use the whole thing for mock up purposes. I didn't get too far before I started having troubles.
Green adapter studs: The instructions describe them as a "tight fit" but I'd always thought studs were supposed to be basically "hand tightened" not cranked down with a wrench
The bolts have a coarse thread side (the one that goes into the planetary housing) which has some sort of goop on the threads....I'm guessing it anti-seize to prevent galling the aluminum case. The opposite side of the stud is a fine pitch thread for use with the supplied locknuts. There is NO way I could finger tighten these suckers...I used the "Double-nut" trick to set them into the case...they didn't bottom out, I just threaded them until I got to the center where there is a slight blank spot on the stud (no threads of either type). No biggie I guess, just need to confirm this is acceptable practice.
TH400-to-Atlas Adapter: This one has me puzzled...Once I had the adapter bolted to the Atlas with the green studs, I offered up the assembly to the TH400 (6 bolts, pretty standard)...I didn't use the supplied gasket yet since I know this will all come apart at least a few more times (By the way, there is NO gasket supplied for the other side of this adapter??) I pulled the cases together pretty closely, and then started snugging the bolts down...being careful NOT to use the bolts to draw the cases together, but to allow it to happen by gently rocking them as I tightened everything up.
Unfortunately, when I got the gap down to just a bit under 1/8" progress stopped. It didn't feel right...like the output shaft of the tranny had bottomed-out on the input side of the Atlas. I realized that I could no longer spin the output yoke the way I used to be able to.... which basically confirmed to me that it was binding up internally. I backed off the bolts slightly and the output yoke spun freely again... Bummer.
So for now, I used a couple small washers to form a spacer behind each of the 6 holes, so that I can at least get this thing mocked up in the chassis. The yoke spins fine now with that extra bit of clearance.
I don't know what sort of endplay (is that the right term?) there should be between the output shaft and the input side but I have to believe there needs to be some room in there... the supplied gasket is NOT going to provide the clearance on it's own, so I'm wondering if I will eventually need to cut down the output shaft of the TH400?? It seems weird that things aren't fitting right....if it were WAY off, I'd suspect I got the wrong adapter...but since I'm within probably .100" of closing the gap I don't know what to think???
Anyone have suggestions? I'll post pics later on to help clarify what I'm dealing with....
Anyway, this morning I gathered up my TH400, AA intermediate adapter and the Atlas and starting doing a "dry assembly" just to use the whole thing for mock up purposes. I didn't get too far before I started having troubles.
Green adapter studs: The instructions describe them as a "tight fit" but I'd always thought studs were supposed to be basically "hand tightened" not cranked down with a wrench
The bolts have a coarse thread side (the one that goes into the planetary housing) which has some sort of goop on the threads....I'm guessing it anti-seize to prevent galling the aluminum case. The opposite side of the stud is a fine pitch thread for use with the supplied locknuts. There is NO way I could finger tighten these suckers...I used the "Double-nut" trick to set them into the case...they didn't bottom out, I just threaded them until I got to the center where there is a slight blank spot on the stud (no threads of either type). No biggie I guess, just need to confirm this is acceptable practice.
TH400-to-Atlas Adapter: This one has me puzzled...Once I had the adapter bolted to the Atlas with the green studs, I offered up the assembly to the TH400 (6 bolts, pretty standard)...I didn't use the supplied gasket yet since I know this will all come apart at least a few more times (By the way, there is NO gasket supplied for the other side of this adapter??) I pulled the cases together pretty closely, and then started snugging the bolts down...being careful NOT to use the bolts to draw the cases together, but to allow it to happen by gently rocking them as I tightened everything up.
Unfortunately, when I got the gap down to just a bit under 1/8" progress stopped. It didn't feel right...like the output shaft of the tranny had bottomed-out on the input side of the Atlas. I realized that I could no longer spin the output yoke the way I used to be able to.... which basically confirmed to me that it was binding up internally. I backed off the bolts slightly and the output yoke spun freely again... Bummer.
So for now, I used a couple small washers to form a spacer behind each of the 6 holes, so that I can at least get this thing mocked up in the chassis. The yoke spins fine now with that extra bit of clearance.
I don't know what sort of endplay (is that the right term?) there should be between the output shaft and the input side but I have to believe there needs to be some room in there... the supplied gasket is NOT going to provide the clearance on it's own, so I'm wondering if I will eventually need to cut down the output shaft of the TH400?? It seems weird that things aren't fitting right....if it were WAY off, I'd suspect I got the wrong adapter...but since I'm within probably .100" of closing the gap I don't know what to think???
Anyone have suggestions? I'll post pics later on to help clarify what I'm dealing with....
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