1170 UPDATE SAGA OF FIXING THE TRANNY THAT WENT BANG

[Ron Sa]

This war began back in January. My first battle was removing the snooker bolt which I posted about on 01/18/22. The factory assembled the bolt because the original paint is showing. Very likely the bolt came from Ferry Cap Screw in India. It turned out to be a metric head on an inch bolt. Working on a 1170 does not tend to motivate one to think metric. An oddball 17/32 socket, quickly acquire from Amazon, fit loosely but worked. As an afterthought, I curiously tried a 13mm metric socket with the bolt on the bench. A perfect fit. First battle won with a little embarrassment!!

Thanks to mEI, he had given me good news that the cab would not have to come off but inferred it would take two able-bodied men to maneuver it out on the right side thru a narrow space.


The war continues. Being a feeble old codger, my cherry picker came to the rescue! I fabricated an adapter to extend the cherry picker's lift arm. Obviously, the vertical space was tight so I used a thin strip (3/8 x 4) and also shortened the two bolt heads that connected to the heavy top cover.
So me and the cherry picker lifted up, held up, folded shift levers, tugged forward, tugged sideways, pried on, removed obstacles, and tilted sideways until the top cover was removed. Old codger wins another battle.

Removing the shifter fork assembly was another battle. This removal had to be done with me standing on a 2 foot high floor stool and twisting my fat torso and arms to squeeze partway into the narrow entry just above the cab floor.


The shifter fork assembly would lift only a partial inch straight up and then tilt backwards and bind up. My first thoughts were whatever is busted or bent is hanging up. The steering wheel and a cinch strap were employed to hold the assembly up as far as it would move so I could better observe what might be hanging up. Only able to view from a bad angle, even using my small lighted mirror on a long handle, nothing of what I could vaguely see looked broken or bent.


As many of you probably know, looking into a black hole works better in pitch dark and using a pen light to shine into the hole. So the next morning while still pitch dark, I trudged out to the barn and squeezed myself into position to look for the problem of the shifter fork assembly not coming out. Using my small lighted mirror again in the pitch dark, I saw the far side reverse rail was sticking back and hanging up on the trannys top ledge. Later in the day, a screw driver was used to pry the rail forward and the assembly came out like it should. Another battle won.

 

[mEl]

Ron , the rear sleeves that stick out are detent sleeves, they roll pin fast to the forks, they rarely but do sometimes wear the roll pins off and disconnect themselves from the fork, this can cause the shifter to lock up as the sleeve holes for the balls to settle into to allow the other rail to move are not in their proper position, I would inspect all the forks to make sure the sleeves are still pinned fast and I would replace all the roll pins, you are not gonna get any closer to it. I admire your ingenuity, we did it manually without lifts but we always had several guys in the shop to give a lift, keep the pictures coming, I know the drill but you are helping others who have not been down this road but will at some point.

 

[LPakiz]

I was a truck mechanic for a lot of my working career. I had a 12 volt test light, which consisted of an 1156 bulb in an old socket from a junk car, with a couple leads and alligator clips.
It worked REALLY well as a miniature trouble light up under the dash, or in your case, under the transmission cover. It will light up the immediate area and if positioned just right, won't blind you.
I made another one from a 194 bulb, with the leads directly soldered to the bulb, then taped up. It fit in smaller spaces.
Now I see some "baseless" dash light bulbs, about the size of a popcorn seed. I think one could solder leads to those two small wires and get it in some really small places.

 

[Ron Sa]

LPakiz Thaks for your comments. One of the aggregations I have with my small lighted mirror it the little lights tend to send back blinding light because they stick out of the plastic too far and are not a narrow-focused beam of light. Maybe that is what I get for buying a cheap one. lol

My pen lights tend to have narrow focus and do not send back blinding light but of course one cannot see around corners with a pen light.