Test run

After a lot of work, the first wheel is under primer.

Clearly, the other four need to be taken to be sandblasted elsewhere or this will take too much time.

Gotta be a better way

Media-blasting one of the five wheels in the blast cabinet took all day. The rest are going to have to go to the powder-coating shop to get sand-blasted and save some time.

That said, this one turned out well and after the rust converter dries, this will be put under epoxy primer.

Tag sale

This transmission was repaired at some point. The evidence is clear since the person making the repair lost several bolts - and this part number tag.

It's not hard to find one of these in the age of eBay, but they are not cheap.

This one wasn't terribly expensive, thankfully. After it arrived in the mail today, it was media-blasted, polished and electroplated. Once this transmission is rebuilt and being assembled, this tag is held by one of the side cover bolts.

Buying two of everything

The cluster gear seems to be fine, so we'll be reusing it. Most of the other parts are worn out, though, and will need to be replaced.

The goal in the short term is to get the cluster gear and input shaft/clutch gear installed. That would be possible had the parts that were ordered not a collection of good and bad parts. Apparently, this is pretty common with rebuild kits for these transmissions. It looks like we'll have to order multiples of some parts to get good parts.

The shift levers were all restored and installed into the side cover and tail housing. They were both set aside for later.

Beads

The glass beads showed up to bead-blast the aluminum transmission case to give it a shiny finish after being media-blasted last week.

Glass beads are just that, tiny glass beads that pean the surface of, in this case, aluminum like tiny ball-pean hammers and hone it to a shine.

The result looks spectacular and allows for the assembly of the transmission to begin.

The bushing for the output shaft and the oil seal for the reverse shifter were pressed into the tail housing. The scissor cams were installed into the side cover as well. The next step will be to install the countershaft and associated gear into the main case.

On second thought

This is all of the spare tire storage parts that can be installed because the upper tray captures the wiring for the rear lights and will have to be removed to install that harness. Putting all of it in now means all that would have to be removed later, but this much is OK.

It's satisfying to see how all of this fits together, including some wiring clips and other small parts.

And one more makes five

The fifth and final wheel came in today.

These range in date codes from 1970 and 1979 and save for a little pitting on the rear of one, are in remarkable condition.

There was a nice set for sale locally that were already painted and ready to go, but I am having fun putting my hands on every part and doing what I can to make them as nice as I can. This is no exception.