> The tranny lacks about 1" or 1 1/2" of mounting up with the engine. I have
> used all-thread as guide bolts to aid with lining it up, but it still won't
> go togather.
That would indicate to me that the input shaft splines are not properly lined
up with the clutch splines, and won't go in. Either they weren't turned to
mesh, or the clutch plate is not centered well enough on the flywheel, or your
guide bolts are holding the gearbox out of line. The plastic alignment tool I
have (think it came from Moss, not sure) is nearly worthless for centering the
clutch plate, so I use a spare input shaft instead. It works much better, but
I still have to turn the shaft and wiggle things around to get the splines
lined up. Just adding force won't work.
> The clutch assembly has been properly assembled, however, the
> gearbox was inadvertenly left in first gear (and now refuses to disengage
> even with light hammer tapping),
That's scary ! Suggests that something is now seriously wrong inside the
transmission, possibly you've put enough force on the input shaft to drive it
back through the front bearing and bind to the output shaft.
> The rear of the gearbox
> has not been factened down yet, in fact, if I use a jack under the engine to
> lift it, the tranny also raises because of the guidebolts.
Not a good idea ... the input shaft is also taking the weight of the gearbox.
Can lead to a bent shaft.
> It seems to me that transmission shaft is simply not going in the pilot
> bearing,
I don't think that's the problem, the input shaft doesn't engage that far into
the pilot bearing.
> however, 3 guide bolts have been used to align tranny w/ engine.
> While these guide bolts have not seen substantial torque, it would seem to
> me that they seem to want to pre-maturely tighten (as if they were all the
> way in).
Meaning that they are jamming the input shaft into the clutch plate.
> Because it is so labor intensive, I hope to avoid taking everything back
> apart.
Unfortunately, that is what I would suggest. Pull the gearbox back out, repair
whatever damage has been done to it (might be OK), then recheck the clutch
plate alignment and try again. This time, don't use the bolts to pull the
gearbox to the engine. Just use them as guides, and push it home by hand,
while wiggling things around.
You may recall I suggested mating the engine and gearbox outside of the car ...
now you know why.
> I wonder if it's imperative for it to be in neutal when this is done?
I always do it in 4th gear. So I can turn the input shaft to line up the
splines, by turning the output flange. Being in a lower gear makes it much
harder to turn the output flange.
> Any other suggestions?
Leave a big contribution in the collection plate Sunday !
Randall
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