Hi I have recently dissasembled my 1936 ford gearbox. Inspected it Cleaned it up replaced bearings and som other parts. It had the early front bearing retainer without oil seal so i upgraded to a newer one .It also had the 32- 35 rear mount with rubber ring wich i upgraded to a 37 - rear mount and retainer. After dissasembly. I just inspected the gears for wear and chipped teeth and i never took the syncrohub or mainshaft apart so it made me baffled when after ***embly i found out that the mainshaft hade very much play back and forth. The rear mainshaft after the suncrohub can be moved back and fort like 0.075 until i mount the u joint but then the the syncrohub gets a 0.113 play. Overall the whole mainshaft feels very untight so i decieded to test to shift gear with the shifter mounted and one time the box locked up. The input shaft would not turn in any dircetion The only reason i could find for this was that the syncrohub had to much play. There was only one gear engaged. This problem not there before i took it apart. Am i missing something here.. ??? What could have happened ??? Would apriciate som advice here. // Christian.
Well...endplay wasn't there before. You changed bearings, which MIGHT have relocated the groove which locates the snap ring which controls...a lot. You also changed gaskets and both end castings, which might have altered location or depth of the recesses that capture the snap rings. Sounds like the U-joint is also pulling the shaft back as the bolt tightens...it should just be firmly pulling everything together against the rear casting. There may be something strange there. Baseline: ***emble entire upper shaft setup from front to back (outside of trans case), push it all firmly together and measure distance between outer sides of the snap rings front to back. That is your basic dimension you want to have! Next measure front to back of case where the snap rings rest. Excess here forces endplay, BUT it sounds to me like that is not even the controlling factor here, that maybe either rings are standing away from case OR the output is somehow being pulled back lifting that ring away from case...? I think start with that, then re***emble with old castings, scrutinize everything new and worry over ***embly details.
I'm probably stating the obvious, but did you have the top shifter ***embly bolted down tight while testing after re***embly? If it's moving back and forth just a smidgen, the syncro can move too far and it could lock-up. Also, did you put the front and rear oil baffles back in? Reason I ask is because I've made both of these mistakes in the past.