GTA Camaro to NASA ST1

I got the valve cover gaskets knocked out. I hate opening engines. I'm always freaked out that I'm going to knock some grit into some place it shouldn't be. I'm not actually sure these were leaking but there was some oil down the back side of the engine on the passenger side. The entire under carriage is/was covered in a film of oil so whatever was dripping was blowing all over the place making it hard to find the source. I've looked at hoses for the dry sump system but, again, with oil everywhere it's hard to tell. I may try taking strips of Pig Mat and wrapping the joints.

Pretty valve train

I guess I ended up with a different gasket than was used before (the blue one). The new ones were black. I opted not to use the included load spreaders as my valve covers are cast aluminum and have that area reinforced already. Hope that's the right decision.

Why not jack the car up and wash the underside with degreaser? Make it easier to find the leaks and more pleasant to work with. 

In reply to jimgood :

If it is something rubbery then heat might do it. You could try a spot with a propane torch. if it worked then 30 minutes in a 500 degree oven might just turn it to ash. Even if you have a small compressor you can still medial blast, you will just have to go slow. A long time ago I had a 2 hp compressor and bought a small medial blaster from harbor freight. It had a small top tank and worked great, just slow.

Dusterbd13-michael said:

Why not jack the car up and wash the underside with degreaser? Make it easier to find the leaks and more pleasant to work with. 

I don't really have a place to do that. I just use Simple Green and shop towels. I've already gotten 90% of it. Really all that's left are some spots on the firewall and a couple spots under the floor.

robert777 said:

In reply to jimgood :

If it is something rubbery then heat might do it. You could try a spot with a propane torch. if it worked then 30 minutes in a 500 degree oven might just turn it to ash. Even if you have a small compressor you can still medial blast, you will just have to go slow. A long time ago I had a 2 hp compressor and bought a small medial blaster from harbor freight. It had a small top tank and worked great, just slow.

Thanks. I'll try that.

In reply to robert777 :

Robert, two thumbs up! I decided to try your idea about burning the stuff off. I used O/A with a welding torch because that's really all I have. I used a carburizing flame. It's still a long process but not nearly as bad as trying to use a wire wheel or abrasive discs. I was holding the torch in one hand and a wire brush in the other. What the torch left behind, I was able remove with the wire brush. I didn't time it but this area seemed to take about 15 minutes.

The coating on the back side of where I was focusing bubbled, liquefied and caught fire a number of times.

The real question is going to be whether I warped the wheel heating it this way. It's not the end of the world if I did. My fall back plan for these wheels was going to be to make some alignment dollies (probably another pipe dream).

In reply to jimgood :

Glad it worked. I'd bet the coating burned off well before the wheel got hot enough to damage it unless you got the steel glowing red.

Just enough heat to soften the coating is usually all that is needed as at that point the wire brush will take it off.

~

robert777 said:

In reply to jimgood :

Glad it worked. I'd bet the coating burned off well before the wheel got hot enough to damage it unless you got the steel glowing red.

Just enough heat to soften the coating is usually all that is needed as at that point the wire brush will take it off.

~

After messing with this, it seems the best way to approach it is to totally burn the coating. If I tried to wire brush the melted stuff, the wire brush just clogged up and smeared it around. One could scrape the melted stuff with a paint scraper but it still leaves a lot behind.

I kept the torch moving so as not to heat the metal to red hot.

Got the car fired up this afternoon and drove up the road to bed in brakes. It was difficult but I'm pretty sure I kept it under the 45 mph speed limit the entire time. No way to know for sure as I still don't have a speedo and I don't know my diff ratio yet. But it ran good. Brakes felt good with the new pads (PFC 01). They only needed three stops to get enough heat that subsequent stops felt pretty good. I'm sure my neighbors love that. I only made one pass up and back so if someone calls the cops they wouldn't have time to find me.

The exhaust insert seemed to make a tiny difference. I guess we'll see how it goes at the track. Their limit is 103 db.

Checked around for leaks. Everything seems dry, even below the back of the valve cover. I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly the headers cooled down enough to touch them. Maybe 15 minutes?

The plug-in oil heater worked so much better. I was able to plug it in using a 25' extension cord vs. before when I used a 100' cord. It heated up much faster between cycles of manually running the oil pump to circulate the oil before starting it.

It was a bit stubborn to start. It always is on a cold start but it seemed more so today. But it hasn't been started in 8 months. I gave it a dose of ether instead of trying to guess if I might flood it.

Stalled it out several times trying to get going but I was in grass at first and trying really hard not to spin the tires. My "shop" is under the house and I have to back the car out into the back yard.

I have mostly been stumped on naming this car but today the name Dwhite came to mind. Yeah. Mispelled like that. 'Cause white car.

That is great you got it together and was able to bed the brakes. Put a cell phone holder on the dash and download a gps speedometer app. I did that and some times use it, don't really need to but do.

If I had a car with a non working speedo I have an old cell phone I could download this app on to via wifi and still use the app even without a sim card so cobbling up a gps speedo is pretty easy, even a simi permanents one you could leave installed in the car.

My wife drives fast and on our cross country move 2 yrs go with the truck full she would creep up to 85 on the open road. I could not read the speedo from the passenger seat, that is when I downloaded the gps speedo app to keep an eye on her speed.

Incidentally there is a racing data app called TrackAddict designed for cell phones to be used while racing that are pretty cool. Not sure if it includes a speedo but I think it is free.

In reply to robert777 :

Thanks, Robert. I might try that.

Car is loaded on the trailer. Open track day tomorrow. Just a day to shake off the cobwebs and get some quality, low stress seat time. Forecast says rain will be intermittent. I wouldn't mind running (carefully) in the rain. I'd hate for my Hoosier wets to age out and get tossed for simply being old.

It started a lot easier today. Five pumps on the throttle, kicked 'er over and vavoom. Settled into a nice idle. Got off the lawn without stalling this time.

Did something stupid when loading it on the trailer. I stopped it on the ramp and left it in 1st gear so I could get out and hook up the winch. After hooking up the winch I forgot it was in gear and started pulling. Realized my mistake, stopped and tried to put it in neutral but it wouldn't budge. Tried starting it up again and pulling forward a little. No dice. It was jammed good. I don't know what causes this but the only fix is to get under the car, put a prybar on the 1/2 shift lever and give it a good whack with a hammer. This is the second time it's jammed up like this. The other time was during a downshift into 1st.

The good news is I ran 5 laps of SP this morning. The bad news is I went into the pits, down shifted into first and the trans locked up. I was stuck about 40 yards into pit lane. It was locked up good this time. The tow truck pulled me about 70 yards with the diff completely locked up. Looks like I did a burnout. Then they didn't have a flat bed to take me to the paddock for about an hour. By the time it showed up, I had time to realize that if they dragged it onto the flatbed, it was not going to roll back off. So I nixed that and asked if I could just work on it where it was.

They wouldn't let me work on it while it was in pit lane until the lunch break. It was about 10:15. Lunch break wasn't until 11:50.

I brought my jack, stands, wheel chocks and a couple of tools over and lifted the driver side. I tried what I usually do unstuck it but something was different. The last two times this happened, it was the 1/2 shift lever that was stuck in 1st gear. This time, the 1/2 shift lever looks like it's more toward 2nd and the 3/4 shift lever looks like it's in more toward 3rd. I could not get either one to budge.

So I have a transmission that's locked up which is locking up the rear axle. The only alternative to get it rolling was to remove the driveshaft. I unbolted the rear u-joint and was barely able to get it off the yoke. But the front slip yoke was stuck. This I don't understand. When I removed the driveshaft a couple of months ago, that yoke slipped out easily. Now it wouldn't budge. I didn't have much room to work so I just used a bungee to tie up the rear of the driveshaft to get it out of the way and then got a flat tow back to the paddock.

I noticed the transmission was leaking oil out of the rear and somewhere up toward the front. It's possible I over filled it.

End of day.

Lots to figure out. I may have to cancel the April 22 race weekend I just signed up for. This is going to cost a bunch of money I can't really afford.

In reply to jimgood :

Is that a Tex, or a jerico?

In reply to HalfFast :

Tex T101A

**********************************************

Definitely some weird isht happening. I had to use a block of wood and a hammer to knock the slip yoke out of the transmission. I had to bang it like that for a couple inches before it was loose enough to remove by hand. When I took the driveshaft out a few months ago, it slipped right out by hand.

Then there's this gap between the main and tail housing that I don't recall being there but one never knows. It's kind of hard to see but it's to the left of and above the oil drip, between the silver and blue sections. This is where the main oil leak is. There's another leak at or above the reverse linkage but I'll look for that when I get the transmission out. The gouges have been there and I didn't have an off track excursion.

Before I removed the driveshaft, I noticed that the front of it was very close to the top of the tunnel. I'm pretty sure there was more clearance than this when I installed the transmission. I could be wrong.

The tail of the trans also seems like it's shifted to the driver side (right side of this pic). I don't recall there being so little clearance between the shift linkage and the side of the tunnel.

The 3/4 shift lever is, I think, in the 3rd gear position. The 1/2 lever looks like it's between neutral and first or maybe in first. I will try to move them once I have it out. The reverse lever, not shown, is in its neutral position. In the pic above, the reverse linkage is the one hanging lowest and is in the forward position (neutral).

I visually checked motor mounts and they're all intact. That doesn't mean they haven't moved. I do see evidence that they have been in different positions but it's hard to tell if it's recent or just from the last time the motor was installed (4 years ago). I'll get a wrench on them next time I'm under there to see if anything is loose.

That's all I have for now.

Had to bring out the hammer and block o' wood to back the transmission out. I think it was just tight because of the twist between the engine and input shaft. Hard to know.

The shift levers are locked up good. I gave them a few taps each with a hammer (see video) and they wouldn't budge. When it locked up before (1/2 shift lever locked in first) all it took was a light tap to snap it back into neutral. I need to get some professional advice before I proceed.

https://rumble.com/v2fx590-locked-up-transmission.html

In reply to jimgood :

Either pull the cover, or get it to a transmission guy.  
 

These transmissions aren't magic. They are built to be rebuilt.  Something is very wrong inside. My guess is it will be obvious.  

In reply to HalfFast :

They might not be magic but I have no idea what kind of tolerances are acceptable inside this thing. I wouldn't know if a little slop is a big issue or design.

In reply to jimgood :

I'm guessing a dog ring broke and is binding everything up.  Same thing happend to me, same place.  In my case I blipped the throttle then went into 4th instead of 2nd.  

When the trans is in neutral the sliding dog rings are centered between 1/2 and 3/4 gears. When you put it in gear the shifter moves the dog rings into contact with the gears. I doubt the problem is the trans, I think it is with the shifter as that is what controls the dog rings and where they are and what gear the dog rings mesh with as per what gear you want the trans to be in. So if the trans is locking up like this I think the problem rest with the shifting machinism in some way.

I am vary interested in this since I plan on acquiring this exact trans, when I heard you had this issue I did a few evening of research, watched a few people take these apart and a few people rebuild them.

This transmission is pretty easy to take apart and if you lay everything out in order as it is removed then put it all back together as it came apart, gears, spacers/shims, shafts etc, then it is not to bad.

This 101A trans is a lot stronger then the 101 without the A as it has in inner support section that spans both shafts and has bearings to support both shafts keep them in alignment better then the 101 version that does not have this center bearing support.

Due to what I seen and the fact this 101A transmission is rated for 1000 hp, I don't think the shafts and/or gears or even the sliding dog rings are the issue. Those parts are aligned and supported and the dog rings that slide back and forth to engage 1/2 and 3/4 gears are controlled via the shifter.

If the trans is getting stuck in 2 gears at once I think some how the shifter is messed up and allowing the front sliding dog ring to engage 1st while also allowing the rear dog ring to engage the 3rd or 4th gear also.

If it was me having this issue I'd probably call the Tex trans people and tell them what is going on and then listen. I bet you could take the side cover off with the shifter and send it to them and they could easily fix/rebuild it and test in on a tex 101A they have in house and send it back to you for less then you might be afraid it will cost.

The shafts and gears and even the sliding dog rings on these transmissions are super tough so those parts are probably... not damaged.

I bet it is something such as a roll pin has come out inside the shifter and is allowing the shifter to try engaging 1st gear and 3rd or 4th gear at the same time.

Take this for what it's worth, a guy who does not own one watching videos and thinking he might know what the issue is.

Hope this has been useful, otherwise just ignore me ... lol

In reply to robert777 :

Thanks for that response. Just a point of order, Tex Racing was acquired some years ago and has since been absorbed by G-Force Transmissions. I called the G-Force headquarters in PA a while back with a question about this trans (don't recall now what it was) and was referred to G-Force South, which is based in NC. They don't have a website, only a FB page.

As to the rest, you might be right. A couple months ago I had the side cover off just to inspect things (this page) and everything looked fine(ish) to me. I also made an attempt to adjust the shift linkage. I think the Hurst shifter on it is pretty old.

I'll drain it and take the side cover off tomorrow. Trying to catch up on mowing before it gets completely out of hand.

Magnetic drain plug. Bigger metal chips than last time. Way bigger.

Shift forks two gears at once:

For reference, here's what the forks should look like when the trans is in neutral (this is from a couple months ago when I first looked inside this trans). In this pic, the sliding dog rings that engage the grooves in the forks are both slid to the right and engaged with gears, probably because I was messing around with them. But normally, in the neutral position, they would be half way between the dog rings on the gears. And sorry if my not using the right terminology.

Here you can see the slider dog rings are engaged with the gears to the right just like in the pic above. Only they're not supposed to do that. Only one at a time please! Nothing in here will move.

Then we peer down a little lower and we can see it's completely f#$%ed. That tooth is gone:

Nothing will move so I guess I'd need to manually force those dog rings into the neutral position. I also noticed that those gears are not aligned. The shafts are probably very stressed.

Well, this made my day.

I'll be vary interested in hearing what it takes to get the dog ring off the 2nd gear. Due to the way those dog rings engage they are truly locked on to those gears so be prepared for some serious force being needed. You will need at least 2 quality pry bars, one for each side of the dog ring.

You may want to take the 2 top bolts holding the inner support out this might allow the gears to flex a bit more and allow the dog ring to pop out of engagement from the gear.

If that don't work you may need to cut the 1/2 dog ring out with a torch or plasma cutter. It will make a mess but you have to take the trans apart any way so it can be cleaned out. After there is a cut in the dog ring it should be able to flex enough so it can be pried forward and off 2nd gear.

The parts/gears and dog ring needed to fix it are actually not that expensive, all things considered but you will probably need to replace that shifter also.

Hope this might be useful.

Good luck.

I'm hoping that diving into disassembly will allow stuff to free up but I have no way of knowing. So here goes nothing.

These steps I didn't get pics of but I removed the 4 bolts that hold the front input shaft bearing cover but have not tried to remove the cover. It doesn't hold anything in place so I'll save it for later.

I then removed the reverse shift lever retaining pin and pulled the shift lever out until it stopped. This disengages the shift fork from the reverse slider gear (or whatever it's called). There's also a pin underneath the shift lever that I believe goes through the reverse idler shaft. Looks just like the pin for the shift lever. So that came out also.

There are also two small bolts I removed on top that hold what I think is the center support.

I removed the 5 bolts that hold the tail housing to the main housing through the mid plate. Then I used a large screwdriver to carefully pry the tail housing off. Thankfully, nothing got hung up and it came off pretty easily. At this point the black mid plate is still retained by two bolts behind the reverse idler gear and possibly other stuff.

All of the gears here look fine. There are a bunch of these weird shavings. But they're not metal. I think it's some kind of foil with a paper backing that has shredded. It's adhered to the inside of the tail housing and it clearly made contact with the reverse gear. I think when the trans seized up, it flexed the case and moved the tail housing enough so this made contact with the gear.

The reverse gear is fine

The reverse idler gear slides off easily. It has several spacers and a bearing on each end. I removed these and tried to keep them in the order they came off and put them into a cup, however, looking at a parts diagram for a G-Force G-101 (closest approximation to a T101A), it looks like there should be two spacers rear most then the needle bearing then a spacer then the gear. I think when I pulled it off, the spacers and bearing slid off and fell on the bench. I picked them up and put them back on in the wrong order. Genius.

I removed the bolts behind it. I think they retain the black mid plate to the main housing.

Behind the idler gear, there is another spacer, needle bearing and spacer. The first spacer was stuck to the gear when I pulled it off.

Put the stuff in a cup with the rear most parts down. I didn't realize when I took this off that there is still a spacer on the shaft (see above).

The reverse slider gear just slides right off the shaft.

I labeled it so I'd know which way it goes on.

At this point I'm not sure where to go next. The mid plate still feels like it's being held in place. I'm not sure if it has anything to do with the item I have indicated below. I don't know what it is but it seems to go all the way from the rear of the housing to the front. There may also be a pressed in bearing that is holding it. The reverse gear has some snap rings I need to remove. I know that's also hold it in place but I'm not sure if there's anything else. Anyone have any ideas?

I ordered some snap ring pliers because the ones I have are junk. I'll wait until I get those to proceed.

I took another look at the shredded area on the tail housing. I was wrong about it being a paper backed foil. It's aluminum from the housing that was shaved by the reverse gear. It's hard to know for sure if this happened when the trans locked up, though the size of the shavings indicates they haven't been there for long. The reverse gear selector was in its neutral position so I don't see how the reverse gear could have been engaged. But I don't really have a clear idea of how the reverse system works. Maybe that gear spins all the time and it's the big gear on the output shaft that just engages.

I put the shifter in my bench vise and messed around with it. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. This shifter feels tight where it needs to be. One thing I noticed is that the spring tension that pushes the shifter to the right is pretty strong. It's possible that when I down shift to 1 or 2 I'm not pressing hard enough to the left. I watched this video of how this guy customizes Hurst shifters and describes some of their weak points and how he corrects them. My shifter already has similar customizations (if it didn't come the way it is from the factory). It's clearly an older shifter.

The hard side pressure pushing the shifter to the right is to help you hit 3rd from 2nd. 
 

That's what got me when I lunched my transmission.  Learned a lesson.