When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
I pulled the trans and torque tube out of 928#1 this week. Trans was in great crisis.
The trans is a "normal" g28/03 case but the torque tube and the cross member are unique.
The cross member has mounts for little mini transmission shocks that never made it to normal production, they were on the prototype chassis shown at the press launch:
The torque tube is the "long style" only used through 1978, but in #1 it has an even longer shaft in it (left in photos) the front of the tube looks normal but the rear has a longer shaft with a shorter clamp. (Typical 1978 tube on rth right in both photos)
That history is really interesting, for many reasons. What struck me was the idea of the mini-shocks, which I had looked into independent of this knowledge a couple of years ago, when I had to replace the mounts for my automatic transmission. I know it's a sort of apples and horses comparison for the S4 but the idea remains appealing and I'm glad to see that I wasn't totally out to lunch on the concept.
Well I stand corrected I didn't know those little shocks went all the way (at least) into US #0021 ~ August of 77
The transmission # is 118 00299, so not likely the original trans for the car. It is however likely from a RoW car around June 1977 since they built around 550 RoW cars before they built the first US car, so it probably contains the "fun stuff" Greg refers to inside it, along with some really noisy bearings.
Most of the changes from the very early transmissions obviously came after someone had to disassemble one of these transmissions.
For instance, the shaft which reverse idler spins on has no drilled and tapped hole so that one can remove it by threading in a bolt. It's "interesting" to remove without this.
And 2nd/3rd shift rod has no hole drilled into it, so that one can push a tool into the hole to wiggle it out of the transmission. It's also very interesting to remove.
The very early thrust bearing for the layshaft is kept from spinning with a roll pin....good luck finding one of those!
The "early" transmissions had a tighter fit on the input (5th gear) bearing, which actually squeezed the bearing too hard (in one plane) and caused bearing failure. Plus that, the bore will almost always be out of round from the heat distortion.
That's really interesting to fix! (Bore too tight in one plane and too loose in the other.)
It goes on and on and on...subtile details to make rebuilding even tougher and one's life more exciting!
....The "early" transmissions had a tighter fit on the input (5th gear) bearing, which actually squeezed the bearing too hard (in one plane) and caused bearing failure. Plus that, the bore will almost always be out of round from the heat distortion.
That's really interesting to fix! (Bore too tight in one plane and too loose in the other.)...
That is a good possibility on this transmision #299... it was always (since I've had it) really noisy sitting there idling with the clutch out and the stethoscope put it just inside the case the input shaft...but it got much worse over a pretty short period lately.
Is there a tech bulletin or estimation when the early assembly and design issues were resolved? I should probably try to collect some cores.
06-17-2022, 12:26 PM
Unusual very early driveline parts
