Re: French politics

<snip>


I did the rebuild at a friends house, as they have a large garage. No
one
there ever heard of anyone ever taking a manual transmission apart,
replacing parts, and putting it back together and having it work without
any
issues and actually lasting.

Then again, I was ripping dirt bike engines and transmissions apart and
rebiulding them when I was a early teenager.

Now I just work on equipment like this:
http://shopping.netsuite.com/s.nl/c.ACCT134104/it.A/id.5750/.f


But I bet all the car/bike repair experience helps with that as well.

Absolutely! Dad being a skilled automotive mechanic also helped.



Done it myself with a friend
after his car's reverse gear lost a tooth, back in college.


This was the same time frame for me.


We had to
hand-carry the whole gearbox across the German-Dutch border (!).


Not sure about the relivence of the German-Dutch border (I haven't been
out
of North America!), but the typical manual transmission being around
100 -
150 Lbs wouldn't be fun to carry for a long distance even between two
people.


It was a small Vauxhall or

Opel.

Didn't they have GM drive trains? Not sure, but I know some European /
Australian cars did. Then again I never heard of a tooth breaking in a GM
car here, especially reverse which are noisey, cheap straight cut gears, but
are generally very strong.

Their engines over there are rarely
above 1.6 liters so the transmissions are accordingly small. Could have
been 100lbs, don't remember. We were already beer-primed by then ;-)

100 Lbs would be likely - the larger ones just beef up the parts a little
more, adding say 50 Lbs.



While
at it we managed to deplete a crate of Grolsch beer pretty good.


There was beer involved when I did mine, I can't remember what type, but
it
was Canadian, maybe Labatt's or Olands


The problem was that we could not test drive the car after putting the
transmission in again, on account of the number of consumed brewskys.
Both of us would never drink and drive so we waited until the next day.

I would've had a similar situation but a friend did the test drive, and
delivered the car to my house.



Afterwards a couple parts were still on the table. Hmm... But: It worked
flawlessly and now down-shifting from 3 to 2 worked with ease. It never
did with that Opel/Vauxhall before. So we had improved and cost reduced
it but didn't remember how ;-)


! ;-)

Likely something to do with the syncro - was the leftover parts spacers
or
shims?


AFAIR it was spacers.

Almost guaranteed it was something to do with the syncro. Neat little
devices. Motorcycles generally don't have them, not even motocross bikes
which need very fast shifts. This is likely due to the much lower rotating
mass and the engine's RPM's are geared down a lot before they go to the
transmission. Most work like the reverse gear in most car transmissions,
which is not synchronized.



I never have unknown parts left over, as I visualize how everything
works,
and every part was put there for a reason. I always figure out why that
part
is there. Some have some surprising hidden uses. I've been known to take
boxes of parts from a motorcycle transmission and engine, without a
manual
or any other aid, or even seeing the unit assembled before and put it
back
together without issues. Figuring out the transmission in one of those
is
not exactly fun if someone previously took the gears off of the
shafts.To
add to the pain, they go together in several possibilities and often
have
extra features milled into them, so the same part can be used on
different
models thus confusing the matter.


Well, all I can say is that the car later went to the owner's brother
who was a trained and certified car mechanic. When he took it for a spin
and noticed the easy 3-2 downshift he asked "How on earth did you guys
do that?"

Interesting. So those transmissions have been known to have hard downshifts
into 2nd. I wonder if the transmission was just as durable? Perhaps someone
responsible for the assembly line misunderstood the shimming specs for the
sycro's and had them all built wrong!




--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Towing a Miata
    ... Is anybody out there towing a Miata behind their RV? ... As far as I know you can't tow any rear wheel drive stick shift car ... "Most front wheel drive manual transmission cars can be towed with all ... This site about European transmissions is more specific about standard ...
    (rec.outdoors.rv-travel)
  • Re: RWD stick shift "family" car... and fairly recent?
    ... Manual transmissions are fine IF you like attempting to equal the ... silliest mistake is to keep the car in too low a gear. ... image of being a momentary race car driver. ... I drive a Volvo branded car vs another. ...
    (rec.autos.tech)
  • Re: RWD stick shift "family" car... and fairly recent?
    ... Manual transmissions are fine IF you like attempting to equal the ... drivers really have no idea of how to use a manual transmission ... silliest mistake is to keep the car in too low a gear. ... I drive a Volvo branded car vs another. ...
    (rec.autos.tech)
  • Re: ? on towing older powerglide trans
    ... but most of that day probably didnt. ... Without researching ... fluid when you raise the front of the car. ...
    (rec.autos.tech)