Overdrive for the ‘55: ripped off on ebay
I have previously posted about my plan to upgrade the manual trans in my ‘55 to a 4-speed, overdrive with syncros in first gear using an NP833. Everything seemed to go pretty easy, I just was able to switch transmissions in a day (including new u-joints). The next day I took it for a ride, when I got to 4th gear it made a godawful noise, kind of like some grinding on an empty 55 gallon drum with an angle grinder. I pulled out, took off the side cover, all the gears looked OK. The bearings didn’t feel bad. I messed around with the detents (I though maybe the shifter was pushing 2 gears too close), put it back in, same thing. So I took it back out and swapped the old trans (had to switch the yokes again). By now I’m getting pretty good, I can switch transmissions in about 20 minutes. I email my ebay seller, he had claimed the trans was in good shape and was swapped out for a 350 turbo for “medical reasons”. He said he was selling for a friend and probably couldn’t get the money back. Shipping on the thing was $75, so I didn’t shipping it back would do either of us any good. Finally, I got $100 back out of my $225.
I pulled the input shaft out and found this:
Thats a chewed up roller I’m holding. Turns out the tip of the output shaft rides inside the end of the input shaft, surrounded by rollers. The bearing surface is the shafts themselves, no races.
