Well, It's been a crazy couple of weeks with school, so I haven't had time to write, but I have gotten a fair amount done on the truck.
I was finally able to track down a governor seal. An inquiry by O'Reilly's determined that the seal was no longer available from National (or anybody else), and none of the other parts places in town (including a specialty bearing and seal shop) had one. I got on the internet and managed to find an equipment company in North Carolina that still had two on the shelf. I went ahead and ordered both, and they came in in time for me to install one in class today. The first-reverse slider gear and speedometer worm gear are on the way, and when those come in I should be able to assemble the main parts of the transmission. I've got some assembly done already, the transmission output shaft, planetary gear set, and freewheeling clutch are in place in the overdrive adapter plate, along with the lockout shaft for the overdrive. The governor is also re-assembled and lubricated and the side cover is ready to reinstall, shift arms and all. I wasn't able to find any thin-walled tubing, heat-shrink or otherwise, that fit over the shift shaft, but we managed to get the shaft seal in safely by putting the shaft into the side cover first, carefully working the seal over the end of the shaft and past the splines with help from a little assembly oil, and then using a deep-well socket to drive it home.
After looking at the engine with my professor, it was determined that it would be best to do a full rebuild, so I borrowed a valve spring compressor and a cam bearing removal tool from the school and got the engine completely torn down, hot tanked, and ready for machining. The valve keepers were all pretty stuck, so I used a spark plug socket and a soft mallet to break them loose. Other than that, disassembly went smoothly. Unfortunately, my daily is starting to act up a little (a starter issue), and so I'm waiting to see how much that will cost before I send the engine to the machine shop. Worst case, I'll have to wait until the middle of next month when I get my next paycheck. I've also been working on the exhaust manifold a little. The exhaust studs were VERY rusted, so I tried using a torch to heat up the surrounding metal and then quenching the bolt with a wet rag, but I could't even get it to budge. Thankfully, I did not break it off, but when I wire wheeled around the stud to try and remove some of the scale to see if that would help, I discovered several small cracks in the manifold, so I think I'm just going to replace it. They shouldn't be too hard to find.
I'm a little short on pictures this time around, I'll try and be better about remembering to take more in the future.
