Well the transmission is in, but not without a few struggles. Been working late pretty much every night, but I think it'll all be ready for the Reunion.
I got the old toploader out and did some verifying of measurements to make sure my old driveshaft would work, although I had to change the yoke to a 32 spline, which is what the Jerico had. I also noticed at that time that the Jerico had a rollerized tailshaft, which I hadn't noticed before. It requires a hardened yoke to handle the needle bearings. Still, I was happy to find that it had that option. I also weighed both transmissions, with shifters, to find out how much less the Jerico set-up weighed. Weights came in at...
Toploader with shifter: 105 lbs
Jerico with shifter: 82 lbs
A savings of 23 lbs is big to me. My car was heavy at 3460 (without the 140 lbs of driver weight), so anyway I can save weight to offset the rollbar is going to be a big plus.
A comparison shot...
I also had to change the front bearing retainer to a standard throwout bearing style, whereas the Jerico had one designed for a hydraulic throwout set-up. It only took me over a week and a half to get the part from Jerico....who had it in stock, but that's another story.
I started out with concerns that the smallblock pilot snout that was on the Jerico would cause interference in the stock steel crank on installation. That would have stopped everything. I talked to Rory though, and he told me that his trans was a long snout also, but that it didn't cause any issues with his stock crank, then I verified from the forum member I bought it from (BH107), that the trans was indeed used behind an FE. Still having concerns, I did some measuring the best way I could with everything still in the car. I didn't want to remove the bell, clutch and flywheel assembly because time was limited, and working on my back on the floor is not my favorite thing to do. A lift would have made this entire job
much easier!!
I measured by using a screwdriver to find the depth from the mounting flat of the bell, to the bottom of the crank hole for the snout. I was careful to only go in as far as the top of the bevel in the crank hole, since it's a drilled hole. Going to the bottom of the hole would have given me a false clearance measurement. Here's how I measured...
Then I measured to the outside of the pilot bearing, so I knew my input shaft splines would not interfere with that area.
I knew these measurements were "rough" measurements, but it was the best I could come up with because my vernier caliper didn't go deep enough. I was hoping that they would be close enough to give me piece of mind. As it turned out, it appeared that I had plenty of room, so that concern went away. Here I'm comparing my depth marks to the input shaft on the Jerico. This shows the depth to the top of the bevel in the crank hole. Plenty of clearance! And the shaft splines showed even more clearance, so I figured I was good to go...
Next came the installation, and I knew I'd have issues with shifter rods and clearance against the tunnel and crossmember. I wasn't wrong. I didn't want to hack a big long area of my tunnel out, so I decided to see if I could gain the clearance needed by just notching my crossmember and and doing a little hammer work on the tunnel. After having the trans in and out about half a dozen times (thank God for that 23 lb weight savings!..lol), I marked where I thought the notch needed to be...
Then proceeded to cut the area out, make a template out of cardboard, then bend/make a piece to fit in the area and weld it back up.
Remember, I was doing all this cutting, grinding and welding while laying on my back, directly underneath the work area which was about 2' above the floor. I think I'd rank this about 1 step above getting my fingernails pulled out with pliers!
I also discovered that I needed to clearance the trans face to clear the small bolts sticking out of the bellhousing that hold the pivot for my clutch arm. I'm not sure how others got away without doing this, but I couldn't rotate the trans into place to line up with the bell holes without doing this.
After about the 8th time installing the trans (
), I finally had it in place for the final time, and appeared to have the clearance I needed for the shifter rods. This shows the clearance I gained, and with the engine being tied down, I don't think movement will be an issue....I hope.
I started the whole job by removing the seats, front carpet, and laying back the back carpet so I could cut the hole for the shifter. While doing all the fitting, I marked and made initial cuts for the shifter, then fine tuned the hole for clearance and rounded everything up to get rid of sharp edges. Everything clears, and the shifter is in place and seems to work fine.
Today, I finished up by re-installing the driveshaft loop, then the driveshaft with the new Strange yoke (Mark Williams was out of the style I needed and wouldn't have them available for another 2 weeks), then laid the carpet back down and trimmed it up and reinstalled my seats and sill plates. I still need to clearance a small spot for the front heim joint for the 3-4 shift rod against the tunnel, but I'll put it on a friends lift to do that because I just can't get enough room for a good swing with the sledge while laying under the car. That should do it for the installation.
Now I just need to finish changing oil, change the plugs and go over some small stuff to make sure everything is working ok, and it should be good for the first passes at the Reunion. With the changes, I'm thinking it should slow me down at least a tenth or two...lol
Now I just need to call the weather guy at Beaver Springs and threaten him to make sure we have some decent weather!
