Transmission Stuff

    " The car has no leaks" famous last words! HA .. the trans was leaking pretty bad. The trans is a TH350 or Turbo Hydramatic 350 with a 6 inch tail shaft.

    The drive shaft was loose in the tail shaft and the rear seal and pan where leaking and it had a strange noise. I set up an appointment to have it checked out at a local shop.

    It turns out that the drive shaft was loose because the tail shaft bushing was missing. They replaced that and put in a new seal as well as fixed a leak at the speedometer cable gear housing and put a new gasket on the pan.

Loose .....

 And fixed......

Leaking .....

 Fixed.....

    My biggest concern was the noise I was hearing at low speeds. It sounded like the parking pawl was clacking. The trans guys says the pawl is fine. He said the trans was mounted with out a rubber mount and that something inside (I forgot) was vibrating and traveling to the inside of the car. He thinks once I correct that it will stop. If not he said to bring it back. I also read that the Lokar shifters are famous for the shaft (for reverse lockout) to vibrate and make noise. I need to record the noise and post to some forums to see what those familiar with that think. At any rate the trans guy said it should be fine to drive just to go easy until I change out the trans cross member to allow for a proper mount.

  
It looks like the trans is just sitting on the cross member?


As a side note I also hooked up the speedometer cable to the speedometer and that turned out to be a dud .. it made all kinds of racket and at about 25 MPH it fluctuated from 50-70 mph! Needles to say I unhooked it again!. I will use my iPhone Dashboard AP until I decide on the route I want to take for that. A rebuild service (without parts) is about 150.00 but then you still have to deal with matching it to the trans. I could just go with an after market speedo and mount it like a tack on the steering column.

Bonus pic ....

    I also ned to drill and screw on the trim ring at the boot of the shifter, should be easy enough.

    Speaking of leaks ... I do not want to do a whole post on this so I will add it here. The chrome thermostat housings are famous for leaking and this one was no exception. I had a small puddle on the intake just below the housing. A quick trip to the parts store and I had the old gasket changed out for a reusable one in no time. I went with the reusable gasket because when I removed the housing there was not thermostat installed. This concerns me a bit because it also has an electric fan installed in front of the aluminum radiator.... was there an over heating issue? It has an aftermarket temperature gage installed I will just have to keep close watch on it for a while. I will put the thermostat back in soon. No hurry in this hot GA weather!

Yeah that gage will have to go for something older ! HA