Well, a good time was had by all.
I took the cover off of the tranny that Hardshell got from Carl and found gnarly teeth on the counter gear where it mates with the the slider in first gear. Nooooo.... I'm not putting THIS transmission in there. I had a spare transmission that I got from Carl last year and it was good, so we used mine instead. Now I have two bad trannys that I can mix 'n match a good one from.
His offshore brand throwout bearing spun wobbly off-center and Hardshell thought maybe that was the cause for the vibration he had been feeling. I had a lightly used vintage original equipment New Dimention bearing that I had cleaned and repacked... we put that in. Finally we discovered he had a seriously worn bell crank shifter linkage. Oh well, after some adjustment tweaking it would shift satisfactorily. Couldn't fix that. We all took a 40 mile cruise to get groceries and "refreshments" and shake-down the trans swap with no issues.
BUT... my 54 started to sputter and the fuel pump lasted long enough to get us home and quit.
Then the rain came. Carl pulled into the shop and adjusted his clutch while supper was cooked. We changed out my fuel pump Sunday morning.
All ended well. Wish you were here. Jethro.
Last edited by Jethro in Va; 04/26/2026 3:13 PM. Reason: Correction
