Long read. Maybe you Ford Toploader guys may have some insight on WTF happened to this transmission. History: Car is an off topic, almost hated on the Hamb car, so I won't mention what it is! The car is not a race car, but a cl***ic original type of car. Owner is older gentleman, a long long time customer of various projects over the years. So I don't have any reason to doubt what he says. I also believe he is not beating on the trans, bang/speed shifting like Ronny Sox, he is not that kind of guy. When he bought the car, it already had trans problems, so he pulled the trans and brought it to me to rebuild, along with an original Long style 3 finger clutch and flywheel and shifter. Trans had lots of damage as the snap ring that is ahead of the 3/4 syncro ***m. on the mainshaft broke and chewed up a bunch of stuff, along with a lot of other beat-up parts, not related to that. Trans had also been apart before me, also at some point. I rebuilt the trans with new 2nd, 3rd, main drive, both complete syncro ***embly's, main shaft, bearings, shift forks, along with all the small stuff. I had the original clutch rebuilt, flywheel cut, new pilot bushing was supplied to him, I also rebuilt and temporally installed the shifter on trans, adjusted it etc, so it would be kind of plug and play, when he re-installed it. Also supplied him with Sta-Lube GL4 gear lube. He also brought me the car afterwards to drive it and inspect what he did. Everything fine, no issues with anything. Trans, clutch, shifter all worked great. I purchased all the rebuild parts, came from David Key Toploaders, which is supposed to be the premier Toploader part supplier. I had no issues with the parts supplied as they appeared to be very nice quality. Fast forward 3 years later and appx between 3000-4000 miles on trans and customer started to have trouble downshifting to 1st. like coming up to stop light, etc. at slow speeds. Wants to grind. I drove the car at that time and also experienced what he said. Clutch worked fine, adjusted properly, no issues with grinding while putting in reverse or 1st at a standstill, so clutch fully releasing, upshifts fine through all 4 gears, downshifts from 4th to 3rd to 2nd fine. Grinds while downshifting to 1st. Told him it has to come out and see what went haywire. I closed for vacation for 2 weeks, at that time and said it will have to be after I'm back. He drove it home as he only lives a couple miles from the shop, he didn't try downshifting to 1st and didn't drive it again except he did take it to a local car show about 1 mile from his home. When he went to leave the show, he could not even shift in into 1st or 2nd at a standstill, without grinding. Could shift into 3rd,4th and reverse without grinding. Shut the car off and was able to get it in 1st gear to get it home. So, whatever was going wrong with the trans got worse in that short period of time. Fast forward to yesterday. He brought me the trans, and I took the top cover off to inspect. Absolutely certain nobody else has been in the trans since I built it. Trans was still mostly full of gear lube, heavy metallic/bronze color. So full of metal. Somehow the 3 syncro keys in the 1/2 syncro ***m are no longer there?????? Syncro rings just spinning in the hub and all chewed up also! No apparent busted/chewed up gear teeth on any of the speed gears or cluster. Figured I would find them in the bottom of the case after dis***embly. All that was there was a lot of mostly, small ground up metal filings, so small they are pretty much unidentifiable what they are, but only piece, of one of the short sides of one of the syncro keys. No broken snap rings on the main shaft, can't understand first of all how those keys could actually come out of the syncro. Sliders can't over shift travel somehow to allow that to happen. Shift rails and interlocks fine. Again no busted or chipped teeth anywhere. How did these keys get all chewed up to tiny fragments and not destroy any gears??????? How did they even come out of the syncro to begin with after 3000 or so miles. Picture shows what's left of 3 syncro keys. They are stamped steel. The washer is on 2nd gear on the mainshaft that has heavy wear, but the gear register is totally smooth, I think its heavily worn due to all the metallic in the gear lube. Other photo is just for reference what the syncro keys look like. Baffled to the max. Seems, this kinda stuff only happens here! Sorry for the novel. Bill
I made a 140+ mph freeway run for a few miles up I5 in one of those not to be mentioned cars with a healthy 351 Cleveland. Afterwards it wouldn't shift out of 4th. When I took it apart those inserts were half way out of place. Popped them back in and it was fine again. Looks like yours came all the way out for some reason. If I remember there should be a round springs at each end holding them in place. I looked - part #44. If you had too much end play that could account for them coming out.
We do the old Ford three speed transmissions here, so my 4 speed experience is pretty limited. I see that the synchro inserts and springs look very similar to the 3 speed types that we use all the time. As standard procedure for us, we stagger the location of the small bumps on the springs from the front side and back side of the inserts…..an effort to keep the spring pressure equalized on all three inserts. Also, the br*** synchro rings should be slightly loose when the transmission is in neutral. If any one ring is tight, something in the mainshaft ***embly is not right. I’m not sure if any of these comments help but I would for sure try to talk with David Kee about this issue to get their opinion.
The only time I've ever had 1/2 keys pop out is if the slider moved too far in the 1st gear direction. I would look to see if it has the proper interlocks and shapes for the shift rail notches. Toploaders are kinda nice as you can easily verify that the detents hold the gears exactly where you want them. I install internal shift rail stops, which positively eliminate overtravel of the sliders. I do it mostly to keep the inertia of the rails from breaking the forks when the faceplates jerk the slider into gear. In this pic you can see the stops, just aluminum sleeves that slip over the shift rails on either side of the 1/2 shift fork... On the long stop to the left of the 1/2 fork above, you can see a small 1/8" hole that I drilled. That allows me to put a couple drops of Loc***e in the hole, then spin it around to distribute the Loc***e so that collar doesn't spin on the rail. This is the only stop collar that needs to be fixed to the rail as the main case in that area is uneven, which requires that end of the collar to be fitted to the contours of the case. The rest of the collars can be left free to rotate on the rails. I think in your case just one stop collar on the 1st gear side of the 1/2 fork would positively eliminate the problem. Grant
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