Chevelle updates

[VintageMusclecar]

Turns out the clutch fork got borked up.

Trans has to come back out so I can swap the fork.

Will order parts tomorrow, hope to have them Tuesday.

*sigh*

[napa68]

You are certainly earning your stripes on this one. Keep your chin up Eric!

[earntaz]

Ooops -- this is what I got from the link ... TAZ

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[VintageMusclecar]

Taz;

I posted this reply a few pages back:

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: VintageMusclecar</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Those images were on my old website, the links are no good any more.

The pics are now hosted on my current website: click here instead. </div></div>

[VintageMusclecar]

From start (turn key) at exactly 1:00 p.m. today to trans out and bellhousing off:

&lt;25 minutes.

That's with hand tools.

By myself.

There's something wrong with that picture...

[Xplantdad]

Had it in and out a few times, eh? [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/smile.gif[/img] I remember laying on my back and farting around with my brother Gary's 4 speed in his 67 Camaro. Got really GOOD at taking it out and putting it back in...LOL

[VintageMusclecar]

Turns out it wasn't the clutch fork after all.

I had the trans in &amp; out of the car 3 times in 4 days and thanks to several brainstorming sessions with Jody Haag, I *think* I've got it sorted out.

Note that the issue(s) had nothing to do with the trans itself, it was all inside the bellhousing. (As soon as I'm sure everything's resolved I'll post up the details of what I ran into)

I got everything buttoned up yesterday, but thanks to a contractor who wound up showing up an hour late, the entire days schedule got screwed up so I wasn't able to get the car out for a shakedown drive.

We were under a severe weather watch all day today (and yesterday as well, FWIW), and with the way my luck's been running I wasn't about to chance taking it out and have something go awry only to be stuck out in nasty weather.

As soon as I'm confident the weather's going to hold for at least a few hours I'll get it back out.

[novadude]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: VintageMusclecar</div><div class="ubbcode-body">From start (turn key) at exactly 1:00 p.m. today to trans out and bellhousing off:

&lt;25 minutes.

That's with hand tools.

By myself.

There's something wrong with that picture... </div></div>

Man.... I can relate. I recently had my Muncie out a few times due to defective new clutch parts. On the third try, I got it down to about 45 mins, and that includes shifter boot, shifter, driveshaft, bellhousing, clutch. That's also laying on my back, by myself, with simple hand tools. It gets easy the third time around! LOL [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/wink.gif[/img]

[VintageMusclecar]

I finally managed to get the car out for a short test drive. As of now, everything seems to be working well. I still have a nasty exhaust leak (or 2) to take care of thanks to the damage done by the old driveshaft, but I'll try to get that addressed within the next week or so.

So here's what I ran into:

Once the trans was in, I took the car for a short drive around the block. I noted a definite lack of clutch pedal travel, and there was a chirping noise whenever the clutch was depressed, or when the car was in neutral and the clutch was at rest.

I had my lovely assistant Rachel get in the car and depress the clutch while I was underneath looking for the lack of pedal travel. It didn't take long to find it.

When I first installed the trans, I'd noticed I had an extra 1/2&quot;+ between the clutch pushrod and fork when I went to adjust it. I wasn't sure what caused that, but I went ahead and adjusted it anyways. When I had Rachel depress the clutch pedal, I noted the back of the fork was actually bottoming out at the back of the fork window on the bellhousing before she got the pedal all the way to the floor. This is what led me to initially believe the fork had gotten bent when the Muncie scattered. As such, I'd ordered a new McLeod HD fork and adjustable throwout bearing.

When the parts arrived, I pulled the trans back out, but upon comparison of the old fork to the new McLeod unit, two things were noted. First, the old fork wasn't bent after all. Second, the McLeod is the later `72 up style that's about 1&quot; longer from the pivot ball to the pushrod cup, so it wasn't going to work.

I reinstalled the old fork with the new McLeod throwout bearing, and as it turns out, I wound up needing all 3 spacers to get my clutch fork to rest at the correct 5°-7° forward rest position.

Here's how it wound up once everything was back together.



This brought my clutch pedal travel back and also improved the Z bar geometry that had never been really right from day 1--which I'd attributed to the bar being a repop POS, but that's another rant for another time.







Still at a loss as to why everything required such a different adjustment, I went back over everything. As it turns out, I'd failed to notice that the new clutch disc was significantly thicker than the old unit was--approx. .285&quot; for the old disk (which had less than 100 miles on it mind you) and approx. .345&quot; for the new disk. The extra .060&quot; thickness caused the fingers on the pressure plate to compress further than they had with the original disk, which increased the gap between the pressure plate fingers and the throwout bearing--that explained why I'd lost so much travel.

Thinking I had everything resolved, I put it back together. As fate would have it, while my clutch pedal travel was much improved, the chirping was still there.

I pulled the trans back out, took some pics and made another call to Jody. He asked me to send him the pics, and he spotted what was causing the chirping noise almost immediately.

Note the very tip of the input shaft in the pic below:



See where it's been polished? That was caused by the new pilot bearing I'd installed when I replaced the trans. I <span style="font-weight: bold">thought</span> I'd purchased a quality unit, a National PB656HD:



As it turns out, it's not a true bronze bushing. Jody instructed me to test it with a magnet to see if it was ferrous--which it was. Apparently these units are known to cause problems since they aren't a true bronze bushing. This one was grabbing the input shaft and causing it to turn at all times when the trans wasn't in gear, and that was the cause of the chirping noise.

I called my friend &quot;Ohio&quot; George Montgomery to see if he had any of the old &quot;good&quot; bushings in stock, and he assured me he did so I sent Rachel out to pick one up. <span style="font-style: italic">Just in case,</span> I sent a magnet along with her...turns out it's a good thing I did.

George dug out a very old box of bushings, and much to everyone's surprise, every single one of them was magnetic. He did a little more digging and found an Allstar ALL26112 extended pilot bearing hanging on the wall. These are intended for use when a block plate has been installed to ensure adequate engagement of the input shaft to the pilot bushing.



A quick check with the magnet revealed it to be a true bronze bushing--but would the extra thickness turn out to be an issue?

I removed the old bushing and measured the difference between the two bushings. The only difference was the thickness of the extra flange on the front of the Allstar bushing, and there was ample room on the input shaft to accommodate it--not only accommodate, but provide even more support for the input shaft.

Another thing worth noting re: these two bushings--

When I first built this car I installed an identical National bushing, and I noted it was extremely difficult to install, actually raising up a burr around the outside edge when I drove it in the back of the crank. I didn't care for that so I removed it, bought another new bushing, and this time I lightly sanded the OD before installing it. This helped, but it was still an awfully tight fit. Of course, I ran into the exact same situation this time around, but once I removed the &quot;old&quot; (new) National bushing, I noted that the Allstar bushing was MUCH easier to install, only requiring a few firm taps to go in where the National required far more effort.

SO...once again I reinstalled the trans (last Saturday) and I've been patiently waiting for a break in the rain to get the car back out. The opportunity presented itself this afternoon, and I'm happy to report the chirping is gone and the trans shifts like butter. :thumbsup:

There are a few other things to note on this installation:

1) Since I had to install shims between the motor mounts and the engine block to raise the engine enough to clear the Milodon oil pan, I am unable to raise the back of the trans enough to get the driveline angle where it needs to be. With the old Muncie I had the engine at ~4° rearward tip, but with the Legend box I'm at 5° and have no more room to raise the trans. I'm not sure how I'm going to address this just yet, but when I do I'll post it up.

2) The shifter sits in the opening beautifully. However, I found the shifter arm to be too far towards the drivers side with it mounted on the left side of the adapter as shown below:

Continued...

[VintageMusclecar]

Shifter in 1st gear:



Shifter in neutral:



Shifter lever mounted on the left side of the adapter, which I moved over to the right side of the adapter (but forgot to snap a pic of):



Shifter in 1st gear:



Shifter in neutral:



Lastly, I only had to make a few tiny modifications to some existing crossmember holes in the frame to get the crossmember bolted down. There were two holes spaced closely together on the drivers side, and with a forward bolt installed the rearward bolt wanted to fall right between the two holes. I removed the small section of metal between the two holes and the bolt dropped right in place.





On the passenger side, there were two holes that lined up almost perfectly. I only had to run a drill bit through the forward hole to give it a touch more clearance and it bolted right together.



So that's it for the time being. As soon as I get the exhaust damage repaired I'll get it back out and report back with a more extensive road review.

For future reference, here is my entire driveline &quot;package&quot;:

-Hays Billet flywheel (approx. 975&quot; thick)
-Ram Powergrip HD clutch kit (comes with a # 402 cover)
-Replaced Powergrip 10 spline disc with a # 310M 26 spline disc
-Quicktime 6022 bellhousing and block plate
-McLeod adjustable throwout bearing, all 3 spacers installed
-Original &quot;short&quot; `67 Chevelle clutch fork
-Mark Williams 39006-1 12 bolt pinion yoke (1&quot; taller than OEM, utilizes 1350 U-joint)
-Mark Williams 4&quot; MS drive shaft, 56 1/8&quot; center-to-center length.

Again, I need to offer a <span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="font-style: italic"><span style="text-decoration: underline">HUGE</span></span></span> thanks to Jody Haag for his assistance with all of this and for collectively brainstorming with me to get the snafu's figured out. He's definitely got any transmission business I can give him from this point on. [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/beers.gif[/img]