Overdrive for the ‘55: the fix
In this post, I showed how the overdrive 4 spd. NP 833 trans I got off of ebay had some problems. The tip of the output shaft is surrounded by rollers and sits inside a race machined into the input shaft. The rollers had gotten chewed up, as well as both shafts. New shafts were about $250-350 each, so I’d end up with like $800 bucks in this trans. I thought about getting another one on ebay, even if it was bad, maybe I could put two together.
What I ended up doing was finding a needle roller bearing (with its own races) from SKF that fit in the internal bore of the input shaft with no modification (the bore was just a little rough, not out of shape). I then had the tip of the output shaft built up with hard chrome and then ground down to fit the ID of the needle bearing race (Babbit Bearing Co, San Jose). As far as I’m concerned its better than factory, now it has replaceable races. Unfortunatly I can’t find the pics, so you’ll just have to use your imagination. I put in a new main bearing, rear bushing and all the seals.
So here’s a pic of the stock pickup shifter in the ‘55, it’s too close to the steering wheel and needs a knob, but thats for next time.
Having synchros in first gear is really nice, and with overdrive I’ve got no problem cruising at 70 on the highway (except now I need to update the brakes).
