Hey guys,

I've got a weekend update.. so my bud and I pulled the motor and tranny last night out of the '68 145 (the motor is a b20). Expecting to find a badly damaged timing gear, we took off the oil pan and timing cover and found 1/4 of a timing gear in the oil pan and a pristine looking one under the timing cover. I guess the previous owner just threw in a new timing gear and never cleaned the engine out. I'm not so pleased.. not that I'm upset about the lack of destruction, but because I just did a hell of a lot of work for very little and did a pretty good job of disabling my daily driver.

Trying to make the best of this situation. The transmission is an overdrive equiped manual unit.. the overdrive is TOO wet to be very healthy, it's coated top and bottom.. The transmission won't stay in reverse, you have to physically hold the gear lever the entire time (not so fun). I've got lots of transmissions, and another overdrive that last time I used it worked flawlessly, and looks a lot dryer. Should I bother switching these around? Or am I asking for trouble, I'd like to get this car driving soon. Is the transmission not staying in reverse a clutch or clutch cable problem (the clutch cable wasn't happy looking and was jerry rigged a bit)?

Thanks for any help, suggestions, chuckles, what have you

Andrew