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No, the "tighten to 20 lb-ft and back off 1 3/4 turns" is ALWAYS the right adjustment. I think your shifter adjustment may not be letting the valve body get all the way into reverse, but hit it when you shifted into neutral and back.

I assume your rear wheels are off the ground and you are observing the driveshaft? Not unusual for the tranny to windmill forward in neutral, but if you put the brakes on and revved the engine, you should not notice the engine straining. In high with the brakes on you should notice a definite load come on the engine as you rev it up. Same in low or reverse. If you feel no resistance in H, then either the valve body is still not set right, the high clutch discs are completely toast(Which you would have noticed by a lot of smelly debris in the pan), or there is another mechanical problem in the trans such as the bushings in the high clutch pack having spun out of position.

Thanks Ross...
I don't think the high clutch disks are burnt out because there was no burnt smell to my trans oil and I only saw 5-6 tiny pieces of debris in the pan. Some may have even fallen in there when I was taking it off.

Before I loosened the bands, N, L, and R appeared to be just like L because I would rev the motor and the wheel would spin faster. I had no chance of getting reverse. Now at least I have reverse, but need to shift into neutral to get it. I noticed that putting it in P and then releasing my foot off the brake would make the wheel move forward slightly until the parking gear engaged. When trying to put it in reverse, I did move the gear selector in the car back and forth a little, but that didn't help. It feels like it is in the detent for reverse.

Park and N would do nothing until I put it in H or L. After that is when the N would keep spinning. I don't think I tried to rev it in neutral yet. Only the drivers side wheel is spinning because the passenger one is slightly on the ground. I don't think that matters though. That's what made me think L was too tight or maybe getting stuck in it?

With the setting I have now, the motor speed decreases in H with the foot on the brake and "clunks" into L with the foot on the brake. It also "clunks" into reverse when I go from neutral to reverse. I think the "clunking" is my idle speed.

Tonight if it is not raining, I'll reset the bands and play around some more. I just don't know what to try next. In any case, it seems H and L are working again, just not right yet.

9-14-10

OK Ross...once again your wisdom astonishes me. I think you are on the right track with the shift linkage.

I reset the bands to the 20 lbs torque and 1-3/4 turns back.

Tried again and paid more attention. Park...nothing. Neutral, with engine rev,...nothing. H idle lowers and wheels move forward. L "clunk" and idle noticably lower than in H and wheels move forward. R this time I slammed it down and "clunk" and the wheels went in reverse! Tried a couple of combinations of gears and I was able to get reverse every time by "slamming" the selector down. Looks like the next step is to lengthen the selector rod a little to give it more room to get reverse, even though I got it adjusted so the gear selector pointer is right in the middle of H like it is supposed to be.

One thing I did notice is that when going from h to L I hear and "feel" the difference. When I went from L to H, the idle sounded the same as if it was still in L. Maybe it takes a little longer to have it move out of L into H than I gave it? I tried to wiggle the selector in the H area to see if I could make a difference, but I couldn't. I didn't give it too much time though, maybe 15 seconds.

Also when I went from L or H to neutral the wheel spun. If I hit the brake and took it back off, the wheel still moved. If I rev the motor the wheel spins much faster, but not as fast as in H or L. Is that normal with the wheel off the ground?

Thanks for all your help! I'm really close now! Maybe this weekend I'll show it off at the local car show! LOL...just kidding...

9-15-10

Adjusted the shift linkage rod by one turn. Reverse is easier to get now. Good enough for government work.

Since I had it running, I put it in H and let 'er rip. Got the speedometer up to 65 mph. Then I remembered what happened to Ferris Bueller and the Ferrari so I put an end to that.

My next question is should I have felt/noticed a difference when the direct drive should have engaged? Maybe I didn't sustain the speed long enough?

Congratulations! The shift should occur on light thottle around 20mph but I would think with the wheels in the air you would not feel or hear much change when going to DD. Working properly, it is a very subtle "shift" even in motion--although if the clutch plate has dried and hardened, there might be a "groan" or as one poster described it, a "mooing" sound at the time.

Thanks HH56,

Light throttle is the key. I was hitting it pretty hard. No way to test it on the road yet because two of my tires would be flat by the time I got down my driveway! Good to know. I guess I'll have to keep my fingers crossed on that for now.

I'm pretty happy that I've gotten this far. I want to thank everyone again, especially Ross. You too. If you wouldn't have given me the spec on that rod, I probably would have just bent it to fit, rendering the trans worse than before. Without you guys, the car would be on it's way to the junkyard. I wouldn't have had the patience to work on it anymore. Now I can move it around when I need to to work on it or get it out of the way. Vast improvement!

Man...I don't know about H now. I went and moved the car to a new place. No problems moving in reverse. When I put it in H, now that there is a load on the wheels, it delayed a little until going in gear. Then it moved forward. Well, after I had it parked, I tried H again. Took 5-6 seconds for it to go in gear. I crept the car forward and then tried L. There was no change in idle speed or a "clunk" noise. Maybe because it is already going forward it wouldn't "clunk"? Maybe I'm over thinking this and just can't believe the car moved! Going from L to H produced no difference in idle either. I can't see how the car could go into L when the pointer is in H now that everything is set. Am I over thinking this? I did get it up to 65mph in H with the wheel off the ground. What do you guys think?

9-23-10

Got about an hour to mess with the car today. Since I really can't test the trans with the tires I have, I'm going to move on. I can move the car around now which was my goal anyway.

The more I dig around in the car, the more I realize how bad the rust was. This is leading me to cut back a little on my restoration expectations and how accurate I'm going to be. Originally, I was going to get a new, correct wire harness. That being too expensive, I was going to make my own dressing up the exposed wires with correct ones. I'm going to abandon that and just replace the wiring with modern wires as close to the wire color scheme I can. Tracer lines on the wires will be a problem, but I'm not going to worry about that anymore. I'm also not going to worry about getting the right engine paint and will just get something close. I can always dress it up later with the right paint if the car turns out better than I expect.

I'm realizing that I'm getting to the end of "restoration season". My concern is getting far on something and not being able to paint it because of the cold. So my short term plan is to get the front end derusted and paint the engine and accessories. When it gets too cold to paint, I'll try to tackle some of the rust patching with my welder.

9-23-10 Continued...

Started to take the front end apart. I removed the radiator splash panel. The top row were hex bolts. The bolts going on the grill were slotted screws with washers. Does that sound right?

To my surprise, the grill started to come out when I took the last bolt out of the radiator splash shield. I guess it wasn't attached anywhere else. I traced the wire into the engine compartment and removed the wire attached to the top of the junction blocks on each side. Pulled the wires out of the holes in the front panel of the car by the fresh air intake tubes. I noticed that each parking light had one wire that was not connected (douglas connector male end?). This is probably why they did not flash when I use my turn signals. I will replace this wiring with modern wires when I reinstall on the car.

Also removed the battery tray. Had to "hug" the fender with a wrench on the bolt head inside the car and my impact wrench on the nut inside the wheel well.

Once that was removed, I turned to some of the bolts on the fender. I loosened the one up top on the cowl. I also removed two in the wheel well on the brace. Tried to do the bolts by the rocker panel, but the metal behind them fell apart and the bolts just spun. Looks like I will have to cut those out. Didn't see any toward the front of the wheel well. Hard to do with a flashlight so I stopped for today. I did notice some rust holes in the front of the wheel well as well as an old fiberglass patch and a metal screw holding things together at the bottom of the fender.

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9-24-10

More disassembly today. Removed the drivers side horn and took the fresh air tube out. Between the tube and the fender, I found a combination wrench! Wasn't even one of mine and made in the USA! Also noticed for the first time, there is a leather? box coming out of the fender that gives you access to the motor mount. Is that supposed to be there or something that a previous owner added?

Once the tube was out, I unhooked the headlight wires and the front harness (goes across the radiator) from the junction blocks and removed the blocks from the fender. Next I broke the bottom bolt at the back of the fender that was rusted away. Removed the bolt on the cowl and the front bolts around the radiator support. Fender wouldn't release from the back when I noticed a sheet metal screw holding it in. Took it off and the fender pulled right out. I was amazed on how light it was. When it is on the car, it feels so thick and heavy.

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