Well, heck. New bushings "feel" better, but the problem is only getting worse. In addition to the random and intermittent disappearance of the synchros, now second gear wants to do its best imitation of a Jake brake when you let off the gas...
Good times
Clutch and synchro kit on order! Unfortunately this one will be handled by the pros. I wasnt thrilled to bench press a trans up to 4x4 heights, and the fact that i lacked the tools to pull and press the necessary things in and out of their respective places inside the transmission only sealed the deal. Appointment scheduled for March 1st at my friendly local garage.
Man... look at that delivery date 
we really have it good in the states, dont we?
Good times
Well, today was the day. Off to the garage she goes. I did a quick coolant flush before i sent her off though as i had drained it when it got below freezing here (the coolant looked to be straight water).
Driving there, i noticed i could keep from grinding gears if i only used the odd gears (1, 3, and 5). That has to be indicitave of a certain component failure (shift fork, maybe?), unfortunately i've never worked on the guts of a transmission.
On the bright side, she made a new friend!
Good times
I like those Jeep tail lights.
Woooooooooooah, we're halfway there...
Ugh... I cringe as I look back and read those optimistic words from 4 months ago. Let's catch up, shall we?
Sort story long, I picked a bad shop. I've had them do little work before (eg: coolant flush on the Saab) and they seemed pretty squared away. Just a couple young guys in a decent sized garage space, decent rates... Well, the shop they farmed out the rebuild to really dropped the ball and I think my truck must have fallen completely off their RADAR as three whole months went by without a single thing being done. When I finally asked about progress, all I got was "oh, the guy got sick".
So another month passed and they finally asked me for the parts I sourced (clutch and synchro kit) so they could get started. Once inside, they found a broken syncro key. They told me it was the 5th gear synchro key, so at great expense I had one fast tracked from the mid-west USA to po-dunk here.
About the same time my grandfather got some bad news about his lymphoma, so an emergency visit to the states interrupted things a bit. While stateside, the shop rang and told me the key I sourced is too small. I called the company who sold me said key (Mid-west Transmission Center, great guys who know their stuff) and they asked for photos. Once inspected they said "yeah, that's not a 5th gear synchro key. That key goes to the 1-2 gear synchro, or the 3-4 gear synchro (they're interchangeable)".
I wasn't amused, but being stateside means I could have the correct keys overnighted to me for $20 instead of $200. It also meant I'd had my fill from the transmission shop. I lied and told them I've sourced a new transmission and that I would accept the truck and trans back in pieces. I then ordered a 20-ton hydraulic press, a set of 100mm and 200mm bearing pullers, and started watching youtube videos.
Looks like I'll be rebuilding my first transmission! 
When I went to pick her up, the first thing I noticed was the saggin sway bar. The shop must have broke the bolts when they moved it to drop the trans:
I bungied it up and out of the way, but my fingers are crossed that the starter and slave cylinder bolts didnt suffer the same fate.
Our little Saab with it's little "1.9 TiD that could" made short work of tugging our baby back to the house:
When we got home and detached, "Africa" started playing on the radio.
Ominous premonition, or just me making something out of nothing. Time will tell on that one
So, first things first: I gotta clean that mess of a garage.
We have a house under construction, so the garage sometimes doesnt get used, or it gets used for other stuff.
Done!
So, like I said; I haven't attempted a trans rebuild before, but I DO have a small automotive library:
And I also have a few other projects I'd like to complete on the poor girl, so I got those out as well:
We take delivery of the transmission sometime this week. The press and pullers should arrive about the same time.
Good times
First things first. Before I get on task and do something productive, I must first get completely sidetracked. It's time to attack the brakes!
The brake pedal is firm on this, but the stopping power isnt anywhere near what I'm used to when it comes to these things. I cant tell if it's the friction material of the pads (most likely), or if it might be the master cylinder getting old... So I decided to swap both.
The pads look like they have plenty of life on them, but that's not going to stop me from changing them anyway. I bought the highest rated, premium, wiz-bang, pads on Rock-Auto in an effort to rule out "friction material" as a possible suspect, should this not work. Changing them will be no problem, but it looks like those rotors are in need of resurfacing (if possible).
The truck is up on jacks, and I got about this far:
Before I got stopped by those cone washers in both hub assemblies... 
They're pretty well seized in there and neither side would bust loose. Getting PB blaster out here is outrageously expensive, so I brushed on a little used brake fluid from my last brake flush. We'll cross our fingers that that will do the job.
Pictured above are two broken bolts in the passenger side hub. I promise I didnt do that 
. I think I'm going to use those as practice bolt removals before I attempt the sway bar bolt extractions.
Good times
Having worked to a stopping point on the front brakes, I thought I'd go back to being productive and "on-task" and would remove the clutch and flywheel:
The clutch came off, no problem (ignore the tire depth gauge. I was trying to measure "new" vs "used" to get an idea of how much life was left in the old one. It didnt work...)
But those (pretty) fly (for a white-guy) wheel bolts were torqued down pretty good. To get at those, I decided to use a trick I've only ever read about doing
(I've always wanted to do this 
)
I melted the end of that rope you see there, and threaded it into the #1 cylinder. I then spun the flywheel by hand until the #1 piston squeezed the rope hard enough to stop the engine from spinning. From there I was able to muscle off the bolts with my breaker bar.
Easy money.
So the clutch and flywheel are out, the brakes are at a work stoppage to soak, next up is the spare tire hoist!
The truck came with an LPG kit when I bought it. I wasnt a fan of the install at all (duct tape, and random crap everywhere).
Unfortunately the LPG tank was installed in the space where the spare tire hoist was. To install it, they cut the chain and molested the hoist a bit. To rectify the situation, I ordered a second hand hoist off of an e-bay vendor I had previously done business with:
I ran into a bit of trouble on this one as the bolts to install it are installed between the body and the frame of the truck. To get access, I have to reach my wrench over the frame rail, and as you can tell by the broken sway bar bolts, those things do not want to turn...
much head scratching followed.
I think I have it figured out. If the hoist installed in the truck still turns, I should be able to install the chain from my new hoist thus making it a serviceable unit again.
It looks like I can disconnect the chain at the marked location, and just wind it free of the new unit. If my new unit spins freely, I could then just wind up the chain into position. First things first though, I gotta find my truck's winding tool (if it still has it). Unfortunately, that's where we stop for the day. It's time to get ready to go to work!
Good times.
End, day 1. (I'm keeping track to see if it takes me 5-months to reassemble everything that's currently disassembled 
)
Kind of a slow morning today, but I did get a little work done. Mostly, it was spent getting that aluminum section removed from the hubs with my ball-peen persuasion device and a 3/4" extension used as a punch.
The brake fluid worked pretty good (shout out to Project Farm on youtube for that one. He did a comparison of penetrating oils once and included that in his tests) but a little over half were still stuck in place. I was able to get them loose one-by-one.
afterwards, I just played with the driver's side until it looked like this:
I spent the rest of the morning ordering redline trans/diff oil, grease, brake caliper paint, etc off of e-bay. The darn stuff totaled over $600!!! 
Then at 10am, I got a call from the hardware store. My press has arrived I can't wait!
(end, day 2)
oh, wait. I forgot I had a mad:
The paint on my hood (that was JUST applied, one page ago) cracked...
I got to thinking about it. When I had that black 1966 Impala the same paint shop painted the rear of it and that paint cracked too!
Boo on me for forgetting that, but I think this is going to bother me enough that I might attempt another paint job myself...
Good times.
Hey, look what arrived at my doorstep yesterday evening! (the box, not the kids...)
Good times
So, another slow day. I got the box opened, and the press all put together, so that was nice
From then, I just went back to task taking everything off the front spindles. It was pretty easy since I got most of the hard stuff done yesterday.
The brake discs put up a bit of a fight, but they were no match for my used brake fluid trick. When I saw how rusty the fasteners were, I was sure I was going to snap every single one of them. But alas, they all came out with little fuss.
Having stripped the spindles bare (even of their dust shields) I decided to go back and have another look at that spare tire hoist. I found the tool to wind it up and down (yay!), but unfortunately the thing was seized solid (boo!).
I gave it a few good crank attempts but figured out pretty quick I wasn't going to get anywhere with it. Oddly enough, the one I bought to replace it doesn't seem to want to turn either. One way or another the installed unit is going to have to come out, so I dabbed some of that used brake fluid on those fasteners as well.
Obligatory image of me dishin out the brake fluid:
After that I was just kicking around trying to figure out what to do next when I remembered that there was a big air leak in my air filter housing where a hose used to reside. I didn't have any vacuum port plugs big enough for such a thing, so I just stuffed it full of stick weld and called it a day
In a fit of luck I discovered that there's a machine shop that basically does nothing but turn fly-wheels and brake discs that's a stone's throw from where I work. So the goodies were loaded up, and I dropped them off on my lunch break (to be completed and picked back up on my way home)
Unfortunately, in a fit of bad luck the shop has not yet taken repossession of my transmission... They (again) seemed surprised I was there to pick it up (agian) despite our chain of messages saying I would be there to pick it up (again) and that (again) it was ok that it was in pieces. I'll be stopping by again on Friday for another attempt. Maybe it's just me, but I think one of them understands english and has infiltrated GRM and saw my thread. Now they're trying to delay me so I dont beat their record of not working. Meh, whatcha gonna do?
Other than that, we're just waiting for that big delivery of grease, oil, etc to arrive.
Good times.
End day 3
A tale of two FLAPS:
I should take a minute and explain a bit about why there's a $600 order of fluids pending.
In town there are two "Friendly Local Auto Parts Stores" (FLAPS). Unix and Totalkar.
Totalkar is run by a husband and wife and they generally hire kids fresh out of school to show them the ins and outs of being an automotive counter person. The husband has a Porsche GT3 that he takes to the same track as I take my RX8 to, and he's also got a pretty slick Suzuki Samurai that he takes out wheeling. This is the sort of place you go to and they let you behind the counter, are super friendly, a place where you pay in cash and they give you a 20% discount...
I once had an alternator go out in my Lada. I went in to place an order for the new one, and had my old one with me as a core. The new alternator was going to be nearly $200 and the husband couldnt figure out why I wanted to spend so much to replace it. Eventually he said "hold on" and took my dead unit from me. 5-minutes later he emerges from the back, charges me $10, and I had a working alternator.
I like this place.
Despite all this, when I want to be VERY specific about something (oil ratings come to mind, specific brands of parts), I can never get what I'm after. If I ask for transmission oil, I'll get GL4 oil, but it will be the cheapest oil he's got. He just doesn't get why I want the more expensive stuff and he will explain in many big Hungarian words that I don't understand why this bottom shelf stuff is just as good as the Redline oil I'm trying to buy. Same with grease, anything that needs to meet a spec. I don't understand it, but I love this place anyway.
Unix is a national chain. They have a website you can look up part numbers in, you get no discount, it's quick, it's convenient, it's the one that hires the kids that Totalkar trained when they're all grown up and sick of working parts counters. When I need something specific (say, like the Brembo OEM replacement brake master cylinder that comes with the extended rod I need to fit my particular truck) they're the ones I go to. To these guys, nothing matters. I'll be back, or I wont, and their world will keep turning. The only drawback here is the specialty oils. They don't carry specialty stuff. Mobile-1? fine. Redline? nope. Go to a race-shop in Budapest if you want that fancy race stuff.
And that leaves me with E-bay, and the high cost shipping that comes with it. Looking at my receipts, I'm almost paying as much to ship stuff here as the items cost themselves. So it's not like I have cases and cases of stuff headed my way, it's just REALLY expensive to get it trucked out here.
So yeah.
Of course there are a few other shops in town, but these are my two go to's.
Good times
PS
(when it comes to tire shops, I only have one. And yesterday he told me it'll be September before he can get 2-more BFG AT KO2's for my truck woof. )
Bill reach out if you need something I (or we) can get for you.
Bob Marley said a hungry man is an angry man, but our man in Hungary does not need to be angry.
preach (fs) said:Bill reach out if you need something I (or we) can get for you.
Bob Marley said a hungry man is an angry man, but our man in Hungary does not need to be angry.
Hahahaha! Will do, man. For sure.
Right now all is good (well, good enough). I still haven't received my transmission but as with any time I receive something in pieces, I'm certain something will be missing.
So heads up, I might be hitting you up for some W56 goodies
(and they're sure to be the oddest and hardest part to get, that's gotten lost).
Good times.
Waking up each day at 4am for a morning thrash was beginning to take its toll on my brain. I'm still not 100% on local time (after our visit to the states) and by 8pm, I would just completely crash. I did, however, pick up my discs and flywheel from the shop on my way home Wednesday (as promised)
Nevermind my greasy hand prints on the flywheel, I are the dirty. In and out in 2 hours and it cost me just under $30. Bill happy.
Two days of sleeping in, though, has my brain fired back up but I still cant figure out what's going on with my release bearing, and why it doesnt appear to be the same as the one supplied in my Aisin clutch kit.
Here's some photos:
Side A:
Side B:
Side view:
Versus, the Aisin supplied bearing:
I get that the clutch kit probably provided the bare minimum with regards to what's needed (eg, just the bearing and not the hub) but things dont seem to match up there either (nevermind the fact that I cant figure out how to take it apart).
Note the following:
Something fishy is going on.
Perhaps worse, the manual states there should be two "clips" I need to remove. I dont think that's correct either.
There was one big clip I removed to get the bearing off the fork, but not two small ones. Nothing on the assembly now looks like a clip either.
So quick recap: The replacement parts are different than the truck, which is different from the manual Sounds like business as usual.
I think I'm just going to put the whole thing in the "later later" bin and move forward with the clutch install using the old bearing.
Good times.
A while back I bought a portable CB for the truck. Nothing major, but we're too far off the beaten path to pick up any trucker talk from the major highways. Since I had to go to Budapest yesterday, I figured it'd be fun to install it on the Mazda and see what I could hear:
I opted for a portable unit for a few reasons:
1) we're never going to use it except in the RARE truck to truck case. It's really just here because I had some spare 4-runner cash and this tends to be the lowest common denominator when offroading.
2) antenna placement is so much easier and better with the magnetic mount than it would be for a permanent install.
3) If I need to leave the truck, I can take it with me
It was fun, but I only picked up chatter once or twice and holy smokes did that guy talk fast. (CB folk... turns out they're the same in other countries too)
Good times.
When I got back from Budapest, I had a little time before dinner so I made a quick electrolysis bath to see if I could free up that stuck hoist:
That smart charger is too modern, I thought, to work in the bath by itself (and a new "old style" battery charger was nearly $200) so I used the truck's battery as a mediator in the situation. It charges the battery which then discharges into the bath, and Robert is your father's brother.
I let it sit overnight, and in the morning it looked like this:
Fun thing about those bubbles. The Hydrogen atoms in the H2O are being split from the two oxygen atoms and are getting caught in those bubbles at the stoichiometric ratio for combustion. I always thought water was cool in the fact that separately its atoms burned perfectly together, but when bonded you use them to put out fires...
Anyhoo, I'm keeping the place well ventilated over the weekend, so hopefully no burning will occur in my garage.
Good times (oh, and I'm not counting this as a "day" because no wrenches were turned. so there! )
Speaking of Batteries:
I would suggest sending a photo of your bearings off to Marlin Crawler and see if they can answer your questions.
Ah... brings back memories.
I sometimes miss the '86 4x4 pick-up I had from 1990-1999.
One thing - my truck went through clutch master cylinders. I think I replaced it three times. I ended up selling the truck before I really dug into the cause, but my hunch was the bushings in the pedal linkage were worn and causing side-loads onto the MC seals. Might be something to look into.
I can't believe how rust free that truck looks. As mentioned, those are unicorns here in the US rust belt. I see one maybe once a year. Maybe.
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