Drove the Sled into the office for the first time in three weeks. IT was running GREAT, come to a right hand turn and pull the selector from 2nd to first, and haul down the block, stop to make a left hand turn and Something Isn't Right (tm).

It’s not shifting like it should, and that gear whine I’ve been hearing is getting more and more pronounced.

So, based on the knowledge that the tranny is overbuilt like all get-out, I suspect the shifting changes can be fixed with a review of the valve body….the gear whine has me a little (LOT) concerned.

I got the rear wheels off the ground on the Sled and have observed the following (odd) behavior:

With the Tranny in OD, light release of the brake pedal will get the wheels spinning.

With the Tranny in first, there's a mechanical 'catch', twice I was able to release the brakes WITHOUT the wheels starting to turn. A burp of the throttle will get everything rolling.

Granted this is with no load on the tires or motor, but you'd think if everything was happy/normal, the wheels would still turn easily in first, right?

A visual inspection shows that all of the U-joints appear whole (although a seal or two look like they’re on their way out) and turning the wheels with the tranny in neutral shows smooth movement of all external parts.

Since this has a Dana36, the Diff is an automatic suspect.

Ech, I just went out and checked, the car won't shift into second (I had it in first up to 3500 rpm and it wouldn't shift) - and the TV cable looks 'ok'.

That said, I’ll be swapping out the rear-end for a much more robust setup while fixing the tranny as a ‘while-I’m-in-there’ situation.

 

It sounds like you have those two priorities, reversed. A bad diff won't prevent the trans from shifting. You can beef the diff "while-IÂ’m-in-there" when you make the transmission functional.

RACE ON!!!

 

No but there's a third problem I neglected to mention: The spring clip that holds the speedo gear to the output shaft broke. If I'm gonna get this deep into the car, I'd best fix the speedo....it makes NO sence fixing the 2.72 speedo when I'd have to touch it again putting in 3.07 gears!

So: Fix tranny, fix speedo, 'fix' rear-end. (In that order)

 

silly question - did you check the fluid level?

 

Not as silly as the answer, if he says, "No."

 

/me sheepishly goes outside to check the fluidlevel. :bb

 

Crap. Problem solved. When we rebuilt the tranny, the last two items I never bothered gettin' round to were the slow drip out the gear select shaft and a slow slow slow leak around the tranny pan. It was a good _quart_ low. Now it’s showing the classic ‘no third gear’ behavior.

I guess I see a set of clutches n bands in my immediate future.