John S's Journal

Yesterday I got the gearbox ready to mate up with the engine. The solenoid cover sealant had dried sufficiently having sat overnight so it was time to make it happen. I made sure to test fit the friction disc on the input shaft prior to assembly, lightly greased the splines, carefully centered the disc, torqued all bolts after cleaning them up, etc.
Should have been a piece of cake. Man, was that ever wrong. I had the engine sitting flat on a HF dolly but still attached to my hoist so I could adjust the height and/or the angle, the gearbox was strapped to a HF transmission jack so the height could be adjusted. I’ve used this combination before and it’s worked well but I had a helluva time with this one. After much sweating and swearing, and an inordinate amount of time, I finally saw some signs that it was lined up properly as the flywheel was even with the bell housing so I finally got a little more aggressive with the gearbox and thankfully it went the final distance with a solid clunk.

I spent some time cleaning up the various tools and supplies afterwards and celebrated with a beverage.

Next up is for me to roll under the car and scrape away a bunch of greasy sludge that had accumulated on the undercarriage from a leaky rear main. Then after that fun job is done, some Dawn soap sprayed liberally all over and then pressure washed so that I can touch up the engine bay, apply some heat shield and plumb the new SS Bell exhaust before the engine and gearbox reinstall.