Daily Log for: July 13,
2002
I haven't made an update for a couple of months, so I thought I'd bring
everyone up to date on our progress. Since I last updated, we've installed
the drive train (after repairing the transmission), removed it again (transmission
wasn't completely fixed), and installed it again (after properly repairing
the transmission). After the first install, the transmission was still
making a nasty noise, so we pulled it right back out and inspected it thoroughly.
This time we found another gear that was damaged. In the previous
update, I had pictures of gear teeth that had broken, and said they were
from third gear. But these pieces were actually from another gear,
and we missed seeing the damage to third gear (see pictures below). After
thorough cleaning and inspection, we put everything back together, re-installed
the drive train, and tried again. This time everything worked like
a champ! It really drives nice, starts easily, revs out really strong,
shifts easily...just a bunch of fun to drive. We have about 150 miles
on it now, trying to get it to 500 as soon as possible to do a 500 mile
checkup...things like re-torque everything, tune it up, make sure everything
in the suspension is still tight, tune it up, etc. The only point
of concern right now is the fact that it runs hot. Even on a relatively
cool day like yesterday (75 degrees), the temp gauge crept up to 212 after
idling for about 5 minutes in line at McDonald's. I have several ideas
on how to attack this problem, including checking the temp gauge to see
if it's accurate, using some "water-wetter", installing an easily removable
electric fan in front of the radiator, and trying a different pressure radiator
cap (not sure which way to go, higher pressure or lower?).
I hope to get a few really good pictures in the next few days and will
update the web site again when I get them. We still have a couple
of pieces of carpet that need to be installed, and the seals around the
quarterlights still need some work, but otherwise we're done. My brother's
been really busy lately, so he hasn't been able to help me out for a few
weeks. He's been doing the carpet work, so I'm hoping I can get him
to stop over soon to help complete them.
Here's a few shots of the motor and transmission being installed...I'm
not sure if this is the first re-install or the second one. We got
pretty good at it!
And here's a couple of shots of the damage to third gear. There were
several teeth that had a small section of one side of the tooth "shifted",
which caused binding when it meshed with the other gear. After this
was replaced, we were on the road!
