Saturday, A brake, and a Tranny!

So Saturday I made it out and pumped through the existing brake fluid, added some old bake fluid I had laying around, attached the new hose to the only existing connecting lines/hoses, adjusted the brake drums, bled the cylinder and ta-da, I have a right front wheel that turns as well as brakes. WOOHOO! Made plans for Monday to run the rest of the lines and get/replace the rear hoses.

Also finished off ordering backing plates for the rear and the parking brake hardware.

And then started the scary task of opening the transaxle that currently seemed to be stuck in 3rd gear and not moving other than the differential.

I've never been in a transmission before. And the warnings in the service manuals basically say "If you've never been in a transmission, don't let this be the first!"

But... As Mike told me, you've basically got something of no use as it is... So, I started as he suggested with the side cover. As expected, nothing really came out, or rather it didn't really open. So I started looking in the manual and just went backwards from the reassembly instructions along with pictures. Found seals inside where the CV joints attach and removed those. Then took a bit of work, but I got the C clip(the type with no eyes on the ends) off the shaft, then that cv mount came off and then the cover came off.

I was now looking at the back side of the diff which had some rust on it. But it didn't want to come out. I checked the other side. Sure enough, same thing. Seal, Clip, mount of and then the diff came out.

Bummer. No access to gears. That's in the forward end... So I look at the manual some more and start going backwards/pictures again.

Remove C-clip, slide off collar, unscrew input shaft extension.

Mark castelated nut on the gear that connects to the diff. Couldn't think of much that would work well. Found some spray paint. That just kinda made a big splotch. I basicall tried to wipe off all but one spot. Kinda worked...

Then you were supposed to move it somehow with a hammer and chisel... Not sure of the approved method. The nut didn't look all mangled up when I started(it looked perfect) But it was looking quite punched after I used my hammer/punch on it to rotate it a few times.

Then came the nuts/bolts on the forward end. And then a lot of prying/hammering/prying and finally somehow the gear assembly moved and then finally came out from the case.

Things were definitely a bit stuck. But really, it didn't look bad in there. Just seized a bit... I managed to get reverse lever moving, then the reverse gear to slide.

1/2 shifter already wiggled a bit.

That 3/4 shifter really didn't want to move much.

Hole thing really still didn't want to turn more than like a 1/2"...

I used about a half a can of PB Blaster, finally got the 3/4 shifter to neutral, then to 4 and back and forth.

Then found one spot where I could get vice-grips on a shaft and finally got the shafts to turn all the way around.

Made sure 1 and 2 shifts also could happen.

I still have at least on bearing that hasn't broken free as even though it's in Neutral it's still spinning like it's in 3rd. Input and output are still connected. I'm hoping I can get more leverage in car.

So I put some gasket sealant on the gear assembly, a bit of grease on the shims so they didn't fall off, engaged reverse so that I could get that gear attached to the shifter and then back in the case. The manual said something about a gentle tap from a mallet or something... I ended up really pounding that thing in repeatedly until I could get the studs to go through so that I could tighten it down with nuts/studs.

Then castellated nut back on with more punch/hammer mangling. I'm hoping I have it the right amount of turns and to the right position back on...

Screw the input shaft back on, slide the collar back down and replace the c-clip.

Then put the diff back in, the mount on one side, the c-clip and seal.

Then the spacer on the diff, the cover back on, bolt down, other mount, c-clip and seal.

Sure enough at this point, however roughly I can actually turn both axles in the same direction at the same time. (though input shaft is still turning).

Hopefully I can put some ATF or something in there for a bit, get it mounted up, more leverage and get Neutral to show up, clean out the gunk, replace with correct fluid and maybe it will work for a while? Not sure what the likely lifetime will be... It is definitely quite rough at the moment, but then it's had almost no oil for years, seized up and only yesterday started to free up with PB Blaster...

I think I shall head out shortly to see about remounting it...