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Thank you, Paul! That's great to hear.

In the meantime, still trying to remove the rear pawl housing without disassembling the rest of the transmission and am using the one with stripped gears as a guinea pig. Does anyone have any ideas? Something is holding but I don't see what it is.

The rear bearing for the transmission main shaft is retained by a snap ring in the front side of the adapter housing and is virtually impossible to remove with the assembly in place, so the complete main shaft and gear assembly needs to be removed.
This can be done by driving out the countershaft and dropping the cluster gear to provide clearance for removal of the mainsheet and gear assembly.

Thank you! It's been decades since I worked on one of these but aren't there many little needle bearings that will fall out with the main shaft removal?

I never made it back to the transmission today but I did get some other things done. With the car so high on the lift and needing a ladder to get up there, I can't open the door very far to check the parking brake engagement as the door hits one of the roof trusses. Looking through as best I could, I can see that the brake handle is all the way in so I'll loosen any under-car adjustments that there may be in order to get the cable link connected to the equalizer. It's almost there and maybe with a second person I could get it but by myself it's not possible.

I flushed out the very long front to rear brake line with rust remover using the Rube Goldberg contraption shown below. A small TEEL pump flushed it through for a while, then repeated with water, air, then brake fluid. It showed no sign of leaks along the tube but that doesn't mean that it can handle the pressure of applying the brakes so was more of an experiment than anything else!

One thing I did yesterday was to try on the siren mount. Looking at the oval area where older paint was showing, it appeared that the mount was far too small and its holes far too close together but closer examination showed that there had at one time been some other larger device mounted there. The outline for the original was also still visible and this one I just got fits it perfectly!

The other holes in the roof were not from the factory and there are two more sets not visible for a pair of "gumball" beacons, one on either side and they were not stock either.

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It probably seems that I am not getting much done but a lot of my time when I'm here goes into other things too such as general shop work and work on other car projects. Today, for example, I helped my brother remove a huge hydraulic cylinder from his backhoe.

So for Henney work, I got the flywheel back in with new bolts and locks but haven't yet torqued them. The WiFi in my shop has been far too weak inside the steel building for some reason to be able look up specifications and I forgot to do so before going out. The clutch arm needs to me put in place first before the pressure plat is mounted as it is otherwise impossible to get it in. Almost but not quite!

I also bolted in loosely the master cylinder which was rebuilt a few years ago. While putting it in, I noticed that it had 1-1/6 written on it in sharpie when I thought it was supposed to be 1-1/8" so I need to be sure it was sleeved properly. EDIT: I asked the rebuilder who said that there is no such things a a 1-1/16 cylinder and added that it was just sloppy handwriting that made the 8 look like a 6!

As a little break, I worked for a few minutes in the transmission just before coming back to the house for the night. Got the back housing off easily once I spotted the large snap ring holding it in place. Surprising the cluster gear isn't as bad as I thought it would be but, of course, any nick means replacement and it has several around it. I do have the replacement for it and for the gear with all the missing teeth but whether I want to just repair this one or use the other is another story.

After getting it apart, I pulled out most of the tooth pieces and little spring cylinders using a magnet. I didn't notice it until I was looking at the photo just now but not sure what the little green thing is toward the right under the larger gear!

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I also got the brake equalizer attached by disconnecting the cable clevis to the handle. It's stuck so I have it blocked upright and soaking in PBlaster to help free it so that it can be extended and reconnected.

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Did a little low voltage electrical work in the shop today which, so far, is the closest it has to being off the grid. That is, not even close yet!

I also managed to get the flywheel's new bolts torqued and the locking plates bent over. Before installing the bolts, I bent the locking plate corners up slightly with a couple pair of pliers before installing to get the the bend started as the plates were also new and very flat.

The clutch pressure plate was installed and torqued so now it needs the transmission which I didn't work on today. Actually, I spent considerable time looking for the replacement thrust bearing return spring that I bought a while back but haven't been able to locate it so far. I've been putting parts I get for it on the lift's platform but it does not appear to be there!

The last time I did this kind of work I was in my 20s or early 30s and did it on rough asphalt. The last time I had it done by a shop was before that as the gears stripped on my 1952 Henney-Packard just week before a Professional Car Society national meet in the car’s hometown of Freeport, IL. The shop pulled the transmission and clutch where I had both quickly rebuilt and the shop put it back in. The car won the Long Distance Award but the clutch didn’t feel quite right by the time I got back so I pulled it out in my carport to find that they had put the clutch plate in backwards. With it that way, its springs were lightly touching the flywheel bolt heads!

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Question too. The bell housing cover is the stamped steel type while the transmissions (both of them) have the fifth hole at the bottom with no place to attach it. Is this car supposed to have the cast cover or is it common to not use that bolt? I can't recall what my other 1951 and 1952 Henneys used.

You should have the cast cover and use the 5th bolt as the rear trans mount is way back on the tailshaft and creates a bending moment int the engine/trans assy. Your bell housing has dowel pins sticking down to align the cover.

Thank you, Ross! That's what I would have guessed too and I believe I have one somewhere but if not, I'll get one.