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I am interested to learn of what you and Wade find of this pressed swaged collar in the main shaft. A friend in Texas used an NOS main shaft assembly that ended up reciently having an issue where the collar moved allowing second and high to both engage the sliding shifter clutch resulting in shelling second gear freewheeler on the main shaft.

My transmission clearly had second gear freewheeler on the main shaft replaced as well as the input shaft. This was not evident or clear at first because I took a quick look at the input and freewheelers, and cluster which all looked good. Latter I looked at the sliding shift collar and first reverse slider discovering they were destroyed. Puzzled I looked very close at things and found the second freewheeler to be literally brand new. I noticed first / second freewheelers were loose on the bearings/ main shaft and pressed the collar back further. This took up the sloop and the gears ran perfect. I figured staking the collar would ensure it was tight and did so. It actually moved again and loosened. This was very alarming because I feared it slipping (and rightfully so as I learned almost immediately latter about the one that did in Texas) and the freewheelers moving. I ground a groove in four of the splines and TIG welded a tiny bead of weld in each to hold the collar in place.

My guess is the main shaft could have a groove machined into it and a circlip used to retain the freewheelers. If needed, I suppose the gear stack could be shimmed to get the correct bearing clearances.

I apologize for not sharing this info in my post on the '40 work progress, but figured no one would get that far into something like this and would just think I was some weird mad scientist mechanic.

Jim

Very interesting Jim, a friend in Texas recently suggested "....Repair of mainshafts may be a subject of conversation with Peter Toet as well as Jim (39Super8), who just repaired 2nd gear on his - as well as repairing hardening issues....". I'll certainly pass on what is found when the mainshaft comes back from it's machining.

Hi all, I have removed and replaced the collar on a number of mainshafts without a failure. I grind a nick into the collar then split it with a sharp cold chisel. To replace the collar I use a hacksaw blade at the split to relieve the cut. I then push the collar back into the groove position and clamp the collar. I then MIG the clamped together split and allow it to cool. The collar cools and shrinks onto the shaft behind the groove, in its origial position. It works for me. Best regards Peter Toet

Monday 16th January 2012

First thing I noticed on the bench this morning was Juniors mainshaft with the gears separated from the shaft. Brookers had been able to cut the retaining collar away then, on Friday afternoon, Wade had presssed off the gears and bearings. With that step completed successfully, step two is to get the collar cut off the donor trans mainshaft. So first up took the mainshaft round to Brookers and left it in Col's capable hands. Plan is to utilise the gears off Juniors mainshaft on the donor trans mainshaft. The synchro's will also be replaced and any other matters needing attention taken care of at the same time. Wade is thinking of going down the path of having a groove cut or ground in the shaft and using a strong snap ring to retain the gears on the shaft instead of welding things back in place. John has given Wade the name of an old-time transmission rebuilder who should be able to do what is required.

Back at the workshop, after returning from Brookers, settled down to cleaning parts for Junior while Wade busied himself perfecting the blueprint for the 426 waterpump machining. Cleaned up the tappet covers, front engine plate and timing case cover by initially cleaning with old stale petrol, then brake cleaner, then the wire wheel and then, if required, the blasting cabinet. Found the tappet covers had some minor rust damage so replaced Juniors with the pair off JohnM's old '39 Six engine and cleaned those up instead. That's all I did today, it's surprising how long it takes to clean things properly. Also cleaned Juniors bellhousing using the same technique, except for the blasting cabinet! You really get to appreciate how heavy a bellhousing is especially when holding and manipulating it on the wire wheel. How heavy? Bloody heavy! Meanwhile Wade was involved in a number of aborted attempts at putting together a decent blueprint for the 426 waterpump machining. Finally, after many magic words of frustration emanated forth, I had to tell Wade to take a break, have a coffee and come back and start refreshed. Appeared to do the trick because soon thereafter Wade was also cleaning parts.

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G'day all, i always had trouble getting the timing light to the flywheel pointer, so i used one of the timong cover bolts and a piece of one-eigth wire rod to form a pointer onto a mark on the harmonic balancer, co-inciding with the timing mark on the flywheel. This also works well on my 5th Series. best regards Peter Toet

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Thanks Peter, very relevant. Wade was just saying today the flywheel pointers are a real b@$#@>d to set the timing with and is going to rig a pointer up to a mark on the harmonic balancer like you've done!

I made a similar pointer for my 115C. Much easier to check the timing at the front of the engine.

(o[]o)

Tuesday 17th January 2012

Today was another day spent cleaning parts for Junior, at least it was for me. I'd planned to start by cleaning up the water pump but because it had evidence of leaking Wade took it under his wing and disassembled it. Just as well, it had been put together incorrectly for one, the backing plate had a crack and it also had part of the pump body broken! That didn't appear too big a problem because the pump I replaced out of my '38, back in 2007, was sitting on the shelf. However opening it up and separating the impeller shaft from the impeller was another matter altogether, but did end up using the backing plate from it, so it wasn't in vain. Mentioned yesterday that Wade drew up a set of blueprints for the 426 pumps, in fact having done a few different years and models Wade now has blueprints for a multitude of Packard water pumps. Dug out the one drafted for a '38 pump a year or so back and it turns out that where the pump body had broken is where Wade had Anglade machine off some metal. Not as much as is broken but not much less so another set of blueprints was drafted to cover the broken pump body contingency.

Yesterdays plan was to do a parts run today. But it didn't eventuate, cause Wade was waiting for the call from Brookers that never came. Would have then meant, after picking up the separated mainshaft from the donor trans, taking that mainshaft and the 2nd and top gear and bearing setups from Juniors trans to the Gearbox Factory at Revesby. Then dropping off the cam for Juniors engine with Graham at Wilkins Performance Engines, taking the three water pumps to David at Anglade Engineering and a trip to Grippy Rubber for the felt replacement for The Fossils floor unable to be sourced last week.

As I said my day was spent cleaning parts, Juniors trans case, OD case, trans mounts, waterpump body, waterpump impeller, bellhousing bottom, oil pump pickup, front motor mount and miscellaneous smaller pieces. After Wade finished his updated waterpump blueprints he moved on to Juniors OD. Started sorting the best parts to be used from Juniors and the donor OD. The lockout mechanism in Juniors OD case showed considerably more wear when compared to the mechanism in the donor OD. So Wade set about changing over mechanisms. This could be Wade's final frontier as far as Packard OD'S are concerned. I think every other part has been through his hands previously but not that. I think now Wade wishes he'd left it as is, being there must be a host of "special Packard tools" which weren't available to assist in doing this. But, be that as it may, Wade succeeded in getting it all back together and would certainly have appreciated just a few tools in particular, one for the circlip at the base of the lockout shaft and another for the tightening the bolt in the middle of the same shaft.

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Wednesday 18th January 2012

John, I think Wade would have been onto it like a shot if there was a spare water pump there. Besides with the machining work required that piece of the pump body is cut out and replaced with a press-fit sleeve for the rear bearing and modern seal, just means a slightly thicker flange now for that end of the sleeve.

Meanwhile, back at the workshop: Pedro, disguised as a door had his knob shot off! What! Where did that come from? From a looong time ago, that's where. But today basically for me, cleaning of parts continued, I think we've just about completed that aspect of things although the sump(oil pan) still needs to be finished. Wade also changed over the front trans bearing from the donor trans to Juniors clutch spigot shaft. The bearing on Juniors spigot, although good, didn't have a sealed face so was just an oil leak waiting to happen.

And had a visit from Harvey, Wade had a parcel of parts for Harvey from the US for rebuild of the trans for Kermit, the '39 Six Business Coupe that Harvey maintains for his boss. And very topically, Harvey brought Kermits mainshaft over with him, was concerned it wasn't good enough, but comparison with Juniors convinced him otherwise. Among the parts Wade had imported were a pair of new synchro rings so, seeing Harvey had brought Kermits old ones, they were left to be returned to the supplier for a core charge refund. Wade also took a trip around to see Col about the donor mainshaft but they haven't cut off the retaining collar yet so a parts trip still awaits.

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No, alas, it was an ebay purchase that doesn't fit. Another lesson learned. CHECK before putting on shelf.