Yankee ingenuity for the next generation

by Brad Nelson

A couple of months ago, my son Ryan came to see me at work. He was not a happy camper. He stated that he had just lost 5th gear and also reverse. I told him to not back up, and don’t drive fast, and he had no problem. He wasn’t satisfied with that answer, and kept pestering me for a better one. I told him to figure out were he had lost the aforementioned gears, and get back there and walk the roads until he found them again. Still not happy. There had been no noise as the errant gears went away; the gearshift lever just seemed to go into “La-la land” when it was where it should have been to go into either 5th or reverse. A call to the dealership produced the news that this particular transmission was not serviceable; that no parts were available, and that a rebuilt exchange was the only thing they could offer, all for the paltry sum of way over $4000 (Ryan swallowed his gum!)

I told him to figure out how to get the top off the transmission, so we could see what was haywire inside it. He said that it appeared we would have to remove the transmission from the pick-up to do this.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because there is no opening on the top of the transmission hump on the floor of the cab big enough to take the top off of the transmission,” he replied.

I looked at him for a few seconds, and then grinned, and said, “Not yet.”

It wasn’t long before the crew had finished for the day and gone home. Ryan pulled his pride and joy (’92 Dodge ¾ ton pick-up with the Cummins diesel engine; good for 21+ miles to the gallon bare naked, and 17+ with the 11.5 foot camper on board) into the shop, and surgery began. The shift lever came out, then the floor mats and carpet, down to ugly steel floor pan. Ryan had instructions to measure and mark the floor pan, so we only had to cut it once. He almost succeeded. With a cut-off wheel in an air die grinder, and lots of safety goggles, we commenced to make sparks. When we lifted off the new “door” on the floor pan, Ryan observed that he had missed the mark by about two inches. So after a second cut, we pulled the top off of the transmission. We found that one of the roll pins that held the 5th and reverse fork onto the shift rail had gone “south.” We put things back where they belonged and moved the offending roll pin back “north.” Ryan pulled the drain plug on the transmission and emptied it of the oil; then we could flush it out as best we could, cleaned off the top and put things back together. With gearshift lever in place, the gears appeared to mesh as they should. It took twice as long to reattach the new floor pan door as it had to make it and remove it. With some 16-guage strap and a pot rivet tool, we soon had it back in place, with minimal use of the four-pound sledge. Ryan insisted that the floor mats would not keep the dust out of the cab, so he filled in all the gaps with silicone. After putting away tools, sweeping the floor and making sure we had nothing important on hand in the way of left-over parts, we went home. Elapsed time from entering the shop until heading home was about two hours. Dividing the time into the $4000 the Dodge dealer wanted, we had each been making $1000 an hour. No wonder I feel underpaid.

About a week later, my older son, Dan, and his young brother-in-law, Jake, came to see me. In the back of Dan’s pick-up was the transmission out of Jake’s truck. It was the same breed of transmission that Ryan and I worked on the previous week after dark. In fact, the same complaint. Only on this unit, the shift forks and the shift rails were still attached together as they should have been.

Dan had already called the dealer and was as unhappy with the news there as Ryan had been. A close examination of this transmission showed damage by grease worms. Grease worms are voracious little fellers which get into all manner of machinery and eat up all the grease and oil. About the time the grease worms finish their feast, the machinery in question begins gross malfunctions. On Jake’s transmission, the discombobulation was the needle bearings that held the idler gear in place that makes 5th and reverse work. When it slipped down out of place, things stopped turning.

I asked Dan what he was going to do. He didn’t know. So I passed on to him a little of the logic of Yankee ingenuity. I explained that someone had designed and built that transmission, and in making it as cheap as possible to produce, they had used as many “off-the-shelf” parts as possible. There is no need to re-invent a roller bearing just to make a new transmission. Just use a standard bearing of the appropriate size that is already in good supply and lots cheaper than making a special bearing. All Dan and Jake needed to do was to find a source of the parts. I told him to try the places we used when the big truck needed internal gears and bearings.

Dan called me a couple of hours later. The second phone call he made was to a place called Six States, and they knew all about Jake’s transmission. They drove to the store, and the parts man looked it over and sold them a bearing kit, a couple of new gears, and a new set of synchro’s, all for a figure on the breezy side of $500.

Three days and four phone calls later, Dan and Jake thought I was a hero. I never even got grease on my hands! But it’s exciting for me, as it is for any father, to see the next generation grasp on to the idea that “I can do that” – and then go out and do it. My sons don’t want me to fix things for them. They want me to share some knowledge that will save them some time and trouble. They want to hear me tell them that they can do it all by themselves just fine.

Oh, by the way … a sweet lady whose name I’ll never tell came back from lunch today and tossed me a slightly used hat. She stated that she stole that for me. “From where?” I asked.

“From a guy eating lunch at Judy’s,” she stated.

“What do you mean you stole it?” I asked.

“Just what I said. I saw it, and knew you needed it, so I reached over and took it right off of his head, told him that I wanted that hat, and I walked right out the door with it,” she said matter-of-factly.

“And what did the previous owner do?” I wondered.

“He just sat there with his mouth open about a foot, and watched me go out the door with your new hat!” she replied.

The lettering on the hat reads, “Idaho Attitude,” and the picture that goes with it is of a bull, the head and horns resembling a Texas Longhorn; the rest of the body resembling an Angus on steroids. He’s looking over his shoulder, and with tail held high, is fertilizing most of the known world.

Thanks, ya little, blonde sweetheart, I did need that hat! PD