They called for snow this weekend.

I went to the bearing shop armed with lay shaft rollers on Friday. the fellow matched 'em up with something that was 4/1000 too long. But no longer available. Discontinued. So.....says I: "screw it".

If the most important bearings in the whole damn thing ain't available, I'll just do it myself. Sounded like a good weekend project at the cabin on a snowy weekend....

So, I get up Saturday Morning at 8, drink coffee...then listen to Car Talk till 10:00. Then assemble all the tools I can muster, tote the tranny into the cabin, and start the dis-assembly process at about 10:30. By about 11:30, the main shaft is ready to come out...so I thought. Nope. The mainshaft WILL come out if FORCED to do so with the cluster gear in place, but the 3-4 selector ring will foul the cluster gear and fall to bits...thats where the dogs and doodads came from on the practice box.

Realising that, I went for broke and knocked out the countershaft and dropped the cluster gear to the bottom. THat allowed me to easily pull the main shaft out, which made getting the input shaft out easy with a long drift and a few slight hammer taps. I bummed a tool from my neighbor to pull the reverse gear shaft. That was pretty easy. Then I installed the new reverse gear and had another beer to celebrate. (remember...the reverse gear was the only problem to start with...)

At this point I had a cluster gear, countershaft, and...42 or so used roller bearings....not to menion spacer rings and thrust warshers that had to be placed in the bottom of the box....while I re-assemled the mainshaft above it. Fortunately, I happened to have a lathe nearby.

I found an old window scraper with a nice oak handle, and going by the advice of the Vclassics page (http://www.vclassics.com/archive/tranreb.htm), I turned that handle into a dummy shaft that would hold the bearings and spacers in place while I put the mainshaft together. that worked like a top. Took a little rotating of the box to get that cluster gear in position, but once I did get it right, the shaft went right in, and everything was dandy. All the gears in place, bolted the rear bearing housing back in, and the front bearing cover. then installed the selecter rods. That was about 9:00pm. Then I checked the movement. 1-2 shift OK, Reverse OK. But 3-4 didn't work. I was pissed... It was pretty obvious that I'd bodged the 3-4 doodads. Dog gonnit.

So, apart it came again. First the selecter rods, then unbolt the front and rear covers, then drop the layshaft. This time driving my new fangled dummy shaft in hopes of not fouling the bearings. Pull the main shaft, re-orient the dogs and put 'em back in place, re-install main shaft, drive teh countershaft back in, put in selecter rods, bolt front and rear bearing holders...and... Damned if it don't appear to work.

All the gears come into place, everything feels tight. Project complete. 11:00pm.

It never snowed that Saturday. Nice sunny mountain weather. Coulda been playing golf. Snow started early Sunday morning.... and I had to take an alternate route home to avoid chaining the 164e up... Couldn't make it up "Dead Mans Hill" even with the M41 in the trunk....

For the record, All the bearings in the gearbox felt silky smooth, gears looked good... and there were signs of a rebuild, so I didn't replace a single bearing. The only part I replaced was the reverse gear. I never took the mainshaft apart... Now I've got spare parts for a rainy (snowy?) day.

Only problem now is... them dogs again. Peter, you mentioned in one of your posts that the dog holding springs should be placed opposite one another.... one clockwise, the other counter clockwise. I didn't see that post in time, and I honestly don't know if I got that right or not. If both are the same direction, will I be screwed?

Damn I'd hate to have to tear this thing down again.....Then again, it ain't gonna be nice enough to install the thing till March...so...

Again, thanks so much for all y'alls the help and support with this project. All these years doing Volvos, and I've always been intimidated by trannys... I still am, but not so much as before...


-Matt