The Monument Hill explorers went off without me, leaving me greasy and unhappy in the engine compartment. Little did they know how difficult it could be to find a way to the top of a hill without a human GPS.
Well, that part seems easy enough.
But before they got here, they had scaled cliffs that are not meant to be scaled, walked beaches that are not meant to be walked, and… well, that’s about it. They made it just fine. The trip up took a lot longer than it should, and the kids were worn out by the top, but the truth is, that was the whole point of the exercise anyway.
Here’s what I was staring at. Somewhere inside of that hunk of metal is our problem. Note: those engine mounts are on the transmission, not the engine, making this portion of the job much more difficult than it otherwise would have been.
Assuming the mechanic’s pose.
Right about here is where I’d make the astute observation, “Honey, I think we may be a little too far out in the channel.”
In addition to his fine anchor building techniques, Lowe also builds docks.
I built a couple of engine mounts out of a few feet of 2×6 that I paid a guy outside a job site five bucks for. Then I hitched a ride to the hardware store a couple miles north of town for bolts. Very first pickup that I stuck my thumb out to picked me up. And on the way back, same thing. I love that about the islands.
I ran into a bit of a problem here. The drive shaft didn’t want to slide back far enough for me to remove the bolts on the coupler. Without removing that, I couldn’t remove the reduction housing portion of the transmission. At this point I was still very hopeful that when I opened up that part, I’d find a worn out thrust bearing. With my ear up against the housing I could tell right where the noise was coming from.
7 Comments on “Monumental”
Finally something for the gearheads. Loving it!
Why is the Travelall back on the market?
Loving it? We’re dead in the water with a broken transmission! 😉 Travelall isn’t on the market. We just like to have pages for our vehicles, so we can look back at them.
That is even cooler, Thank You! How about a page for the Limo 🙂
Going back to serious matters, did you manage to yank the tranny out or are you stuck?
Just FYI if you use a dowel as a stereoscope it works well and you can kept your ears off oily, greasy hot things. Not there is any grease on your engines they look very clean!! And youi can really pin point the source of the noise.
Good luck with the transmission..have you tried to source parts you may need..just to be prepared??
Ugh, transmission problems….I don’t envy you. I do, however, envy Ali and the kids getting to hike and swim while you work. Good luck with it! Make Nick come and help you….
haha, I did.
Guessing: If you pull the lock nuts from the bolts holding the yellow coupler to the red coupler plate, would the red coupler plate then slide aft? And then possibly the yellow coupler would slide forward a little and then drop away from the shaft? It’s most likely keyed to the shaft but might slip away when freed forward a little.
Some dang fine pictures and words, awesome stuff.