Transmission (Final)

Put all the plugs back in. Fill it up with 80W90 gear oil and voila... Here is the finshed product. I still need to put the main gear on and find a new lock-ring for the drive shaft, but I am pretty pleased with the result.

Transmission (Part 6)

Received today all the parts ordered from MG Cycle so it was a good time to go into the workshed and try to assemble the transmission. First I replaced both seals with the new Viton seals. I don;t have a special tool to insert them so I improvised. I have a bigger set of sockets (24 - 36) so I matched up the socket with the seal that would nicley fit on the seal rim. I then used a rubber hammer and tapped on top of the socket which would drive the seal in the hole nice and evenly. If you don't put these in correct, you will have leakage everywhere, so take your time with this. Next I inserted the remaining ball bearings in the cover of the transmission. Here I also used the same sockets mentioned before. Make sure you insert the bearings straight and that they are flush with the hole.

The hardest part... reassembly of the gear. The key here is that you have to get the gears and the selector in the correct possition before closing it up. If you don't do this, you will be "missing" some gears (it will only allow you to shift in 1st and 2nd or 3rd and 4th). I used a drawing from Greg Bender's website to show me how they need to be lined up. When you insert the shafts with their gears it will be a little tight in there and it will require some wiggling. Make sure you lube the seals before sliding in the shafts. I started with inserting the main shaft (the one in the center bottom). Then the Clutch shaft (the one on the left) and then the gear shaft (the one on the right). This is the hardest one. Take you time and make sure all teeth slide into eachother. I then slide the dogears on the shaft, leaving them loose (without the pin holding them). You need to do this because the selector shaft needs to be positioned correctly. I would recommend running a little string under the bottom dogear up to the top. This will help you to pull it up when you need to insert the notch in the selector shaft.

Once the selector shaft (drum) is in place you need to position it according to the drawing on the left. Failure to do so will cause you to open the transmission over and over :) After positioning it correctly, take a deep breath, drink some coffee, relax... because here is the hardest part... inserting the dogears pins into the selector shafts notches without disturbing the position of the shaft. The top dogear will go in easy, you can reach that one with your hand. Remember the string I mentioned? This is where is comes in handy. Use the string to pull up the bottom dogear and wiggle it untill it falls in the notch. Now slide the pin/shaft in the dog ears holes and, if you did it right, the pin will go through the plate of the selector shaft, the two dogears and into the hole on the bottom of the transmission. The last thing to insert is the oil pickup plate (the indented side on one of the ends goes into the transmission plate)

Insert the Neutral indicator (with a nice new gasket), the plunger pin (clean the spring), and put the new gasket on for the cover. I checked an double checked everything one more time before I slid the cover on (slowly). When you start feeling resistance, look and make sure the shafts are linening up correctly and "falling" into the bearings. The dogear pin will give you the most trouble. Just use a small screwdriver to push it in place. Tap the cover down with a rubber hammer using a cross patteren. Once down, I used brand new Stainless Steel bolts and washers to secure the plate. I inserted the pre-selector (with a new spring) and put that cover back on with a new gasket. There is an inherit problem with oil leaking around the selector shaft and there are some solutions out there on the internet. One of them is to have a O-ring machined into the shaft. This sounds like a viable solution and I might look into that one.

Transmission (Part 5)

So this weekend I was able to head up to Gary's work again and use their great facility to glass blast so more stuff. I dismanteled the carbs and some other small stuff, but the main part was the transmission casing and covers. You all saw what they looked like in the pictures below. See and be amazed what a little glass blasting can do...

This is the (clean) inside with the new bearings in place. One of the old bearings was a real pain to get out. I used a old shop trick by heating the part in a oven to 350F. Since aluminum expands at a higher rate then the bearings metal, removing it was now a breeze. While the case was hot, I also inserted the new ones. The needle bearing that was in there was still in very good condition so I left it in there (this one is a pain to find anyway).

Transmission (Part 4)

I spend the last 2 weeks spending :) I ordered all new ball bearings for the transmission. After trying to find them online for the cheapest price, I endend ordering them from Maryland Metrics. They might not be the cheapest but they had them all in stock. The total came about $50. I promptly recieved them this Friday and they look nice and clean. I also ordered a bunch of stuff from MG Cycle (gaskets, new seals, new selector spring, etc.). While I was filling my shopping basket with them I also threw in the tool I needed for the fork collars. I wasn't done yet... I went to BoltDepot.com and ordered a complete new set of Stainless Steel bolts, allens and nuts for the Ambo. I had to do this sometime and I have to say that the service and quality of BoltDepo.com really blew me out of the water. The speediness of the shipping and the individual packaging really surprised me. Top notch!

Last but not least, I found a local guy named Tom (Clermont) that was closing shop on his racing business and was selling a bunch of 80W90 Klotz gear oil. Exactly what I needed for the transmission on the gearbox. Top syntetic oil for a bargain price ($8 a quart).

Transmission (Part 3)

Ok, now the good stuff... The heart of the transmission.

Make sure you have removed the neutral indicator and the gear engagement pin (little srew on the left of the neutral indicator). It has a spring and a pin in it, DON'T lose these!

Unscrew all the bolts holding the plate down and put the transmission on it's 'butt'. This way your gears won't slam on the floor when you remove the plate. Take your time here, I actually had to tap the driveshaft a little to get the plate to slide up. Some parts might fall down and clunck against each other... don't worry, it is a metal... :)

What you DO want to be carefull with is the two little pins in the gear on the left top (see picture) They are held down with... uhhh nothing... BUT they are springloaded... You loose these and your SOL... so when pulling this shaft out make sure you keep it all together.

I removed all drives (the driveshaft requires you to unclip a clip on the outside) and got a good look inside the transmission housing. Wow... what a mess! Again, definitly needs a cleaning and rebuild.

Transmission (Part 2)

Next step is to take the selector cover off. Just take the screws out and remove the cover. Don't worry about the spring jumping out, there isn't that much pressure on it. I was amazed on how much gunk (technical term for crap) was in it. It looks like all the wear of the gears and bearings collected in this little space. Definitly something that needs to be cleaned.

Transmission (Part 1)

Alright... it was a nice Florida evening, 8:00pm, both kids in bed and wife watching a show on TV I didn't want to watch... this meant I had 3 to 4 hours of Guzzi time :) So I decided to start on the rebuild of the transmission. I know this is not the easiest part but a necesarry one. Transmission detached from the engine, on the workbench, first thing I need to do was remove the lock nut from the driveshaft. Without the special Guzzi tool, this is not easy so I had to improvise. The nut is held in place with a special tabbed washer with one of the tabs bend down to hold the nut in place. I used a small srewdriver to bend the tab back. The nut is a 4 notch kind that requires a special tool to turn. I use a $2.99 tool tha I bought for my anglegrinder (to remove the disks). It is adjustable and has two pins in it that fit perfectly in the nut. The problem was, how do I hold down the driveshaft from turning while I try to remove the nut? The solution was to use the coupling that connects the shaft to the rear and clamp a wrench on it. Remarkably, the nut came right off.

How sad....

Today I decided to start entering my Guzzi story in the blog again and I noticed that my last entry was May 31st... It has been a busy, busy last 4 months for me but not all without progress on the bike. First I moved to a different location in Orlando (Winter Park to be precise). Just that took up 2 months of my Guzzi time. The good thing is that I gained a nice workshed out of the move with my own private and airconditioned workspace! :)

Like I said, there has been progress on the bike. Unfortunately, I don't have pictures. But here is where I am...

After I inspected the fram more closely I just didn't feel comfortable with the welds and the bend center bar. I found a good frame online for $100 and had it shipped to be via Greyhound. This frame is in very good shape and I feel good about the choice.

After I unpacked everything I moved, I started to sort the parts that needed to be blasted, painted and chromed. I have a good friend of mine that is a VP for an aircraft parts restoration company in Titusville that is allowing me to use their blasting equipment. This is a tremendous help and a must (blasting) when you restore a old bike. So I brought over the frame and some other parts last week and glass blasted them. I will be bringing by some more parts next Friday (hopefully including the transmission which I will disasemble this week).