Aussie RHD 1975 C20 2WD Resto mod

Good to see ya Puffy, suuuuure is lookin great!
AND come he'll or high water, I think it's best to stick with what ya know airplane guy.

 

Next I will be rebuilding my SM465 to go behind the rat 454.
Ive purchased a Novak rebuild kit as it has pretty much everything, I did stump up the extra for a modified anti jump out 3rd gear kit too. As I've owned a C20 before I had this problem on my old truck when I lived in Canada, but it did have 380,000 miles on it so I figured it was allowed to hop out a third now and again!

There is a guy on youtube (GebBuilt) that has a good series of videos showing the rebuild process. I will post a few pics along the way.
But check out this video series if you are interested.

 

Hi Rusty,
How you doing?
We are all good down here. Staying safe, wearing masks and washing hands. Oh and not going out basically! lol.
Rollon getting a vaccine! At least I have a fridge to put beer in, not that it stays in there long!

 

Good to hear.
I'm working MORE now than I was AND today is my first day back from vacation..turns out I liked that better than working..

 

Hi Paul, I read your thread start to present, looking good, keep up the nice work. I'm out the good side of Melbourne, outer SE,
Did you have any luck with replacement spindles?
cheers Dave.

 

Hi Dave.
No still need to replace those at some stage.
The inner race span on the spindle and it has about a thou' of wear, but you can feel it with your nail. I used the old center punch method and loctite for now, until I come up with a couple of replacements. It can all come apart easy enough at this stage.
PM me if you have any info. Cheers.
Im in the SE suburbs too, Berwick area.

Youre not down in Tyabb are you?

 

Nar Nar Goon. I'm looking forward to getting back to the swap meets and Berwick Breakfast Runs.

 

Well Ive taken my SM465 apart, took the bellhousing off, couldnt find the tin dust shield for this one.

so I bought a 460486 Aluminum one for a 12" clutch. If anyone knows the part number for the original tin cover for the cast iron bell that would be appreciated.

Here are the casing of the SM465 all painted, awaiting the rebuild process of the internals, waiting on the post!




While im waiting on those parts I cleaned up my prop shaft and added the alignment marks for when it goes back together. Again waiting on parts!



Thats it for now.

 

Ok, so I got my Novak kit 2 days ago and I started the rebuild process. Not too bad, after watching GebBuilt's youtube video series (see post #77 for the link).
Referencing my Chev books too. One thing purchase a felpro gasket kit, TS80161, I got mine from Summit, its far superior to the Novak supplied kit. If nothing else you will have a full set of spare gaskets and seals in case of those dreaded oil leaks!!

So after pulling apart the Tranny and giving it a damn good clean, I got ride of 40 years of grease and grime off the thing.

I thought I would tackle the countershaft first and get it out of the way.
So remove the snap ring, press off the 4th Gear, and spacer, second snap ring and the snap right holding 3rd gear in place.
One tip, invest in a good set of snap ring plyers!! It will save your fingers and a lot of swearing!



In the Novak kit there is a tube that looks like a "press piece" just as GebBuilt says in his video. Or to put it another way a bit of pipe, cut to the exact length to space the gears, and hold 3rd in place.



Simply slide this spacer over the counter shaft and re-press on the 4th gear, and install a new snap ring.

 

Here is an exploded view of the SM465.



You can see the three items (44, 45,46) on the counter shaft that are replaced by this mod.



OK, here it is back together, and laying in the bottom of the case.

Also I include a brief rebuild pdf, it gives some torque figures too.

 

OK main shaft rebuild.




You can see the new anti-jump out 3rd gear to be installed and the slider.

 

Well pull the shaft apart and keep all the bits in order.



I removed the 3-4 slider, snap ring to remove the slider hub, 3rd gear synchro and 3rd gear. The 3rd gear bush came off with the gear! Loose on the main shaft. Im sure that would not help with hopping out of gear. Finally the shim between 3rd and 2nd gear,
Note. It has a location key on it, so pay attention when putting the cluster back together.




I removed the 1st gear, 1-2 slider, and 2nd gear and synchro ring.

At this point the slider keys and retaining springs were removed. Remember to pay attention to how the springs hold the keys.

 

My 1st and 2nd gear bushings were ok, so I didnt replace them.
Check all the parts for damage, you will find that the reverse gear shows signs of leading edge damage, as per normal, but then how long are you in reverse?
Both sets of slider keys and springs were replaced, all in the kit,
I checked out 2nd gear and reinstalled it with the new replacement shim with the keyway in the proper position, then pressed on the new 3rd gear shaft bushing.
Then the new 3rd gear and new synchro, and the 3-4 slider hub, held in place by a new snap-ring. More swearing and hurt fingers!



Then the main shaft was reinstalled into the case.

New bearings and more swearing at the snap rings!

I didnt go into these photos as I referred to the video and the manual at this stage.

Here is the almost finished beast.

 

I had to change from the cast iron bellhouse to a 460486 aluminum bellhouse as, 1) could not find the dust cover tin for the iron one. 2) the 460486 is made for a 12" clutch, so that was the decider.



Notice the big bulge on the lower bellhouse to accomodate a large clutch.

Just waiting for the topcover rebuild kit to finish the job.

 

So to the last part of the tranny.
The top cover.
Not too much seems to be said about this quiet important part. So here goes.

So first things first, to remove it you dont simply unbolt it and lift it off/out.
You must first half engage reverse, that means push down into the reverse gate, and half pull the stick into reverse. This puts the selector folks into the correct position to jiggle the top loose and remove the cover.
Obviously when it goes back into the tranny you gotta do the same again, to get it back in!

So here are views of top cover forks.






So you can now see what kind of shape your forks are in.
As you can see mine are not too bad, but they were both showing signs of wear of this "teflon" coating (or whatever it is? ) where they run on the selector hub groove. See the inside edge of the fork?
So I ordered some replacements WT304-23 and WT304-23A, these came with the coating but its a lot thinner on the fork, but the fork is a bit thicker to makeup for it, so as it wears I guess there wont be as much slop??