Transmission, Clutch, and Differential rebuilds
Richard's Corvair
The Restoration of my 1960 Corvair
Navigation
Month 8 part 2
This is the second part of month 8. Once I get the car finished with the interior and engine I’ll take it to my alignment shop to do the adjustments.
The differential moved from a rusty and muddy mess that took several days to force the case open to a sandblasted and painted case ready for assembly. We finally had to make a wrench out of a piece of oil pipeline to break loose the 47 years of rust. (shown below on assembly)
There was a binding in the differential assembly. Disassembly showed a broken pinion shaft retaining pin holding it together. Adjustment is straight forward so in very little time I had the .005” tolerance required and no end play anywhere.
The transmission gears have a few broken tips. I will smooth them and reverse the gear so the good side is in primary contact. Both bearings in the transmission were very worn and loose, with pitting in the raceways They had to be replaced. Fortunately they were in stock at my local Timken retailer.
The bronze synchronizer shows very little wear, but the chrome ring is indented. It still appears to lock tightly. There is no sign of this transmission or differential every having gear oil in it with EP additives (no black sulfur/phosphorus). I added 4 shims to take up the slack. (Later I would learn that the darker ends of the shafts indicate wear and would make noise.)
The shifter forks were very loose so I tightened them with a center punch.
And finally the assembly is together and waiting for the car to put it in. It shifts easily between the gears with a screwdriver in the linkage, so should work fine.
The engine sheet metal is ready for assembly, with the tubes painted silver since they pass through the air plenum. Some of these parts were either donations or purchases from members of various Corvair Clubs in the US.
The original starter was welded and had excessive play in the nose bearing. I rebuilt it with a new nose cone and a custom bearing to compensate for wear in the shaft. (Later I would learn the true cause of the broken nose was a bad flywheel that I had to replace.)
The pedals and shift lever are blasted, painted and lubed.
The old clutch disk was not completely worn, but was burned and flaking, saturated with something. It has been rebuilt.
The pressure plate and flywheel were in pretty bad shape, so I had them were resurfaced and balanced at a machine shop. (This turned out to be a bad decision, as the machine shop did not balance them and there were bad welds. The pressure plate was also slightly oval. See month 30 for details)
The original throwout bearing support was broken so I am replacing it with this new design with a double oil seal.
The old distributor was very worn out and both the rotor and cap were patched with epoxy. There was a lot of play in the bearing and the lobes were worn down. I replaced it with a rebuilt one from the US and put a Pertronix Electronic Ignition inside it.
I bought kits to rebuild the carburetors. This is the stuff that was inside the first one I opened. After cleaning it up I discovered the other one is not from the same year. The one on the left is a 1960 while the one on the right is from a later year (without some parts). I will have to buy a matched pair.
The differential moved from a rusty and muddy mess that took several days to force the case open to a sandblasted and painted case ready for assembly. We finally had to make a wrench out of a piece of oil pipeline to break loose the 47 years of rust. (shown below on assembly)
There was a binding in the differential assembly. Disassembly showed a broken pinion shaft retaining pin holding it together. Adjustment is straight forward so in very little time I had the .005” tolerance required and no end play anywhere.
The transmission gears have a few broken tips. I will smooth them and reverse the gear so the good side is in primary contact. Both bearings in the transmission were very worn and loose, with pitting in the raceways They had to be replaced. Fortunately they were in stock at my local Timken retailer.
The bronze synchronizer shows very little wear, but the chrome ring is indented. It still appears to lock tightly. There is no sign of this transmission or differential every having gear oil in it with EP additives (no black sulfur/phosphorus). I added 4 shims to take up the slack. (Later I would learn that the darker ends of the shafts indicate wear and would make noise.)
The shifter forks were very loose so I tightened them with a center punch.
And finally the assembly is together and waiting for the car to put it in. It shifts easily between the gears with a screwdriver in the linkage, so should work fine.
The engine sheet metal is ready for assembly, with the tubes painted silver since they pass through the air plenum. Some of these parts were either donations or purchases from members of various Corvair Clubs in the US.
The original starter was welded and had excessive play in the nose bearing. I rebuilt it with a new nose cone and a custom bearing to compensate for wear in the shaft. (Later I would learn the true cause of the broken nose was a bad flywheel that I had to replace.)
The pedals and shift lever are blasted, painted and lubed.
The old clutch disk was not completely worn, but was burned and flaking, saturated with something. It has been rebuilt.
The pressure plate and flywheel were in pretty bad shape, so I had them were resurfaced and balanced at a machine shop. (This turned out to be a bad decision, as the machine shop did not balance them and there were bad welds. The pressure plate was also slightly oval. See month 30 for details)
The original throwout bearing support was broken so I am replacing it with this new design with a double oil seal.
The old distributor was very worn out and both the rotor and cap were patched with epoxy. There was a lot of play in the bearing and the lobes were worn down. I replaced it with a rebuilt one from the US and put a Pertronix Electronic Ignition inside it.
I bought kits to rebuild the carburetors. This is the stuff that was inside the first one I opened. After cleaning it up I discovered the other one is not from the same year. The one on the left is a 1960 while the one on the right is from a later year (without some parts). I will have to buy a matched pair.
