Need '35 Transmission Help

flathead34

flathead34

Senior Member
When I run my '35 I hear a "clunking" noise. I can hear it in the car but not the the engine area. I depress the clutch and the "clunking" goes away leading me to believe it is coming from the transmission. I drained and took off the transmission top to see if I could see anything amiss. I found that when in neutral I could rock the intermediate shaft back and forth a quarter inch and the clunking noise is duplicated. The syncro and gears seem to be tight to the shaft leading me to believe that the noise is from the universal. My question is, should the intermediate shaft rock back and forth, in neutral, or should it be tight? Thank you for any help and suggestions. Mike
 
Stepping on the clutch will disconnect the engine from the transmission input shaft & counter shaft cluster and it will all slowly turn down to a stop with the cluster being bathed in the heavy oil. The main shaft won't turn until a gear is selected.

When you describe rocking the shaft I assume you are mentioning the main shaft that is attached to the universal at the rear. If your trans is in neutral and you apply a torsional movement to the main shaft, you will also be applying rotational force to the universal joint, the driveshaft, and the pinion shaft in the rear axle assembly. There should be a bit of backlash with the pinion in the rear axle. All of the splines should be relatively tight with maybe just a slight bit of movement if any. The universal should be relatively tight if it is not worn in the bushings. If there is a lot of play in the universal it will move more than it should when rotational force is applied.

You may have excessive movement in the cluster or the input shaft bearings so you may have to disassembly the transmission to check that. Mack VanPelt has an excellent book on the early Ford transmissions if you don't already have a copy.
 
If the whole shaft moves and the bearing doesn't it is probably the bolt that holds the u-joint to the shaft is missing or loose --many times when it is installed the notch is not properly seated in a spline ---this gives a false feeling of tight, but it will work loose ---another possibility is there is a problem with the bearing
 
Thanks guys for the suggestions I hope it is in the universal. I do not look forward to having to pull that transmission. I just went through replacing a broken driveshaft in my '34. I do have Van Pelt's transmission book and started to reread it again. Mike
 
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