The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot Big Bolts 59 Viking 60 - 4 speed trans question

After a day of hard work, I have a question. My truck has no brakes, so I'm just creeping through my property in 1st (Granny) gear. The trans sounds very noisy in 1st gear. If I shift to second, it sounds fine. Is this normal? I do smell a little gear oil also (possibly hot gear oil), but don't see any leaking. I hauled 12 loads of debris about 1/2 mile. The truck sat for 30 minutes or so between each load, so it wasn't working constantly. My theory is that with the high rpms climbing hills, etc that possibly the trans was getting hot, and maybe that's normal?

Granny gear is noisey on those. I dought if you are getting the trans. hot. It might be slinging a little grease on to the exhaust pipe. It may have a engine oil leak getting on the manifold. I think I would do enough to get some brakes on it.

Granny gear uses a big sliding gear with straight-cut teeth. It's going to be noisy, no matter what you do. Because of the low reduction ratio, it's also going to develop a lot of heat when it's in use, and it will also wear pretty quickly. It'sa intended to be used for very short distances to get a heavy load moving, then a shift to 2nd. is needed. That's also the reason we never used the 1st. gear shifter position on the high side of a 13-speed Roadranger- - - - -it wore out the gears too fast!
Jerry

I don't think you are going to hurt anything by running in first gear. I wouldn't have the patience to run in first gear even if I didn't have brakes. I would use 2nd. It will provide plenty of engine braking. I don't see the analogy of running a 13 speed speed in 1st in the high side. The old 13 speeds (before the RTLO series) were nothing more than a than a 9 speed with another splitter in the rear. In 9 speeds as well as 13 speeds, 1st gear in the high side does not fit in the shift sequence. Not using the gear has nothing to do with gear wear. As far as the smell, it is very common for the smell to come up the shift tower. If you are not slinging oil anywhere, I wouldn't worry about it. However, it probably wouldn't hurt to change the oil in the transmission.

I don't see anything leaking. I have to use first though because I'm creeping up and down some steep hills with a heavy load on a road that the truck barely fits through. I hauled at least 15 loads between Saturday and Sunday. Most of them had the truck nearly maxed out. I am amazed at how well the truck did. It needs a few things, but I bought it just to do this job, so I wasn't going to even attempt to repair anything until afterwards. I knew the truck worked, so I wanted to get my job done before biting off something that didn't work out like it should. It will soon get the master cylinder / hydrovac rebuilt, carb rebuilt, some exhaust manifold gaskets and all fluids changed. At that point, I may sell it if I'm not too attached.

Be careful about repairs if you are thinking about selling. It is easy to get alot of money tied up in the brakes. $279 for a master cylinder. $60 per wheel cylinder ( there are 6) $150-200 for hydrovac rebuild; Brake shoes: $300. Drums turned at $50 each.I had to go to a regular machine shop. Finally, after trying everything I knew to do to bleed and adjust the rear brakes (I do have a shop manual), I finally had to give up and go to a pro. It still took them 4 hours and and a power vacuum bleeder,not a pressure bleeder to get them done. All in all about $1600. These trucks don't seem to bring much more than $3000 even with only 15,000 original miles like mine. Good luck

I agree with Matt. If there is any possibility that you will be trying to sell anything larger than a 1 ton, it can be a very serious money losing situation. My fascination with larger trucks is because I grew up riding in my father's fuel oil delivery trucks and then operating semi's for the past 46 years. I always tell people that are looking at an old larger truck to figure on more money to get it to stop than to get it to run. In addition to the costs Matt outlines, you have 6 tires instead of 4, if you have the RH 5 wheels, you will want to find some safer ones and insurance can be a problem. I grew up maintaining these things and still have the equipment. If I do it myself, like hone the cylinders, turn the drums on my lathe, rebuild the hydrovac I can save a lot of money. If I have my guys do it, it gets expensive because I have to show them how to do it. As a rule of thumb, figure every dollar you sink into anything larger than a 1 ton money in a black hole. You will never recover it.

Ditto on bodywork restoration! Once the running gear is safe and reliable, making one look nice is another bottomless pit of money-grabbing projects! Hand-making sheet metal patch panels on big bolts can get time-intensive, if not actually out-of-pocket expensive!
Jerry

Don't worry, I fully understand all of that. I may just sell it as is, but it would probably be hard to sell with zero brakes. If I decide to work on the truck, my plans were to do it all myself and to spend as little as possible. I grew up working on 50's and 60's cars and run a fleet of medium duty trucks at work. Anything that I am not familiar with, our mechanic at work is a friend who would be good for steering me in the right direction. I have a couple of leads on wheels to replace the RH5's and have a friend with a junkyard who is restoring a similar truck, so he has some "extra" parts around. I have access to a few MIG welders and my brother-in-law runs a steel company. With all of that, my biggest concern is tires. I know there is nothing I can do about the cost of those!!

I guess what I meant earlier was that if I could get some brakes by rebuilding the hydrovac and M/C it may increase the value in order to sell. I had no intention of rebuilding the entire brake system just to sell it. If I decide to fully restore the truck, I'm keeping it. I've considered selling the dump body to finance some of the project because I may be more likely to use the truck for something else.

My opinion is sell it as is. Maybe you can find someone who doesn't know whats involved in getting it to stop. It probably won't fetch any more money if it stops or if it doesn't.