John S's Journal

Finished up with my test bench setup. Not pretty but effective and inexpensive to put together. Spooled up the gearbox and flipped the battery charger power to the solenoid and watched it build some pressure. Only about 120 psi so time for inspection, cleaning and service part replacement.
Pulled the relief valve assembly out and the larger o-ring looks ok but the hex plug o-ring is missing. Hoping to source one locally but have a call in to Quantum Mechanics to hopefully get a kit of all the necessary items needed. Curious to see what the affect the missing o-ring had on total pressure.

Started up the car this morning to run an errand and noticed that the tach wasn’t working. My first thought was a wiring issue since I swapped out column cowls yesterday for one that I sourced on the BST. So, off came the steering wheel and cowl to see what I could find. The only thing that looked marginally suspect was the triple bullet tube with the white wires that runs from the ignition through the coil and a few other gauges. Pulled the wires, cleaned and reinserted. No difference. Car started and ran fine but still no tach. Starting to think it died an untimely but very coincidental death. Decided to plumb the depths of the forum archives for RVI tachs and Pertronix as I remember there being issues. Found references to running the red lead straight from the ignition fuse instead of the +ve terminal of the coil which is how the car was wired when I got it 3 years ago. Hadn’t been an issue but I decided I had nothing to lose by moving it and leaving just the white wire on the coil +ve. Bingo! Weird that it would start doing that the day after my cowl swap.

With that settled, I turned my attention to my OD test rig with the clutch disc and a pulley from an old air pump. I headed to a local metal supply place in search of a short piece of pipe and scrounged one out of a scrap bin where they have all kinds of offcuts. I wound up with a 3.75” piece of pipe 2” ID and it cost me not a thing. Cleaned up all of the mating surfaces and phoned a friend with a welder. A few minutes later and I have part of the rig put together. I’ll work on the motor side of the drive system tomorrow hopefully but I’m thinking about a hinged setup that will allow me to slip the belt on the pulleys and tension/lock the motor in place. Gauge is plumbed and the gearbox is mounted temporarily to my Workmate bench for now and I’ll add a couple of ratchet straps to secure it. I hope to spin it up tomorrow.

Been away on a family vacation so I haven’t done anything for awhile.
Had a couple things show up in the mail while I was away and they were delivered in the held mail bundle. A replacement steering cowl arrived from a forum member so that was something that I could do today. Had to remove the steering wheel anyways as the one that I recently bought from another member was off a spline or two.

Also got the old clutch disc that I requested on the BST forum. I can’t say enough about Dick Moritz. Such a gentleman. Always gracious and so knowledgeable. He wouldn’t accept any $$ to offset the postage from across the country. The task now is to put together a pulley set up to drive the OD gearbox that I found on Craigslist. Hardware store trip tomorrow to see if I can get a piece of black iron pipe that I can weld to the disc and weld a pulley to the other end. I should say, get welded as I’m going to see if I can persuade a friend since I don’t own a welder.

The other piece of the equation also arrived today. I purchased a gauge kit from James Holekamp so that I can test the pressure when I do get the gearbox spinning. I’ve checked the electrics out but still don’t know if I have a working OD yet...

My plan today was to put the OD gearbox on my transmission jack and clamp the motor to my WorkMate bench and try to mate the two together. The WorkMate has 2 working heights so I lowered it and then was able to crank the gearbox up. So far so good..Bought some 3/4”heater hose and some band clamps and set about joining the two. The input shaft is 7/8” and the motor shaft is 5/8 with a flat side where the pulley gets a set screw. I took the pulley off so that I could clamp the slightly oversized hose to the motor and the other end to the slightly larger input shaft. I bought 3/4” hose thinking I could work it onto the 7/8” shaft and clamp it and I was hoping to be able to pinch down enough on the motor shaft.

Epic fail on the first attempt. Just wouldn’t grab on the motor side. Spun around and cooked the rubber eventually.

Round two. Inserted a piece of copper tubing to avoid the hose twisting and this helped but still spun out.

Round three. Off to the hardware store in search of a piece of pipe or conduit to slip over the 5/8 shaft. Bought a short piece of 3/4” EMT and a couple of set screws. Drilled and tapped 4 holes to try and center the larger EMT on the shaft. A bit wonky and led to numerous attempts to spin the OD up. Managed to get it balanced somewhat for a couple runs where I could activate the solenoid and look for a change in revs.
Without a gauge, it’s a little bit of blind aeronautics. It seemed to change but I’m not claiming victory yet. Gauge kit due to arrive next week and after a family trip, I’ll try round 4.

Hoping to find a throwaway clutch disc so I can rig up a pulley system at some point. The plan is to see what kind of pressure is building and then drain, clean, change the service items, refill with the proper oil and get it ready to transplant later this year.

Looked into the electrics a little today. 3/4 lockout works in 4th which I was expecting. The guy I bought it from had purchased a new one so I can check that off the list. Homed the solenoid and got 15 ohms which it is supposed to be and it was also replaced so another check done. The plan is to spin it up and see what kind of pressure builds so I ordered a gauge kit from Jim Holekamp today. O-600 psi glycerin filled gauge with a hose and adapter to fit the pressure relief valve plug.

Meanwhile, I started the search for a motor. I used to have a big drill laying around but could not find it so then it was a quick CL search and a call to my son in the electrical business to see if there was an old one laying around. No luck there but then looked at the motor on my drill press and 5 minutes later, the search was over. 1/2 HP and 1725 rpm and the wiring is easily reversible to get the shaft rotation to CW.

Looked around for some hose to use as a coupling but struck out so tomorrow’s task is to get some and hopefully spin this thing up to see if I can get it engaged. Hoping that the kit arrives before too long so that I can see the actual pressure. I’ll clean things up afterwards but I’d like to know why the guy couldn’t get it to kick in and go from there.

Got an email into John at Quantum Mechanics to see about a service kit of o-rings, seals, gaskets, etc.

I hope anyways. I found the car on CL about 3 years ago and it was a bit of a gamble as I couldn’t hear it run or drive it but it paid off in the long run so today I took a chance on a blue label OD that I spotted yesterday not long after it was posted. Left a phone number for the guy early in the day yesterday and he called a few hours later. It came with a project car and while it was in the car, he couldn’t get it to engage. He did a few things to it while it was in the car but still no luck. He wound up pulling it from the car and putting a 4 speed gearbox in instead and then sold the car on. He kept the OD just in case but decided he needed the money more than the gearbox.

So, I took another chance and bought it for a decent price. He seemed like a decent sort and told me the transmission worked fine in all gears but just wouldn’t engage. So I have a project for when the weather changes. Time to assemble the bits needed to run the box up and see what kind of pressure it will develop. Got a gauge that goes up to 400 psi so that should get me in the ballpark. Might even have a motor and/or a big drill. I’m hoping it’s something relatively minor. He had an extra solenoid and inhibitor switch so I’ll check those out. Should be fun...