SanFord the Great! A 1956 Ford B-600 RV

Well, I was wrong about the transmission. It's not a Clark 4 speed.

A passing comment from my father caused me to pull the fill plug on the transmission. He said that sitting oil level on a 4 speed, should be below the main shaft seal, that all the gear oil was running out of. Hmmm.

Sure enough, the transmission was full of water again.

I pulled the floorboards to see where it was coming from.

No clues there unless it was running down the shifter when the roof was leaking.

I did find the casting marks it. It looks to be a Borg Warner T98. So all my research into the Clarks is wasted.

Anyone know what OD transmission will swap in its place? Are the bellhousings on truck transmissions all the same on the transmission side. Would a Clark bolt up?

International Harvesters Heavy trucks of the era (and Newer) also ran the T98. They had a Five Speed (I think) with OD, that might be a direct bolt in. I'd check the googles for that one. YMMV.

Call Cohen Truck Parts and speak to Chris. He can give you the info you need. Phone# 610-269-1298. I have been really impressed with the amount of knowledge he can come up with off the top of his head.

In reply to Don49:

Thanks, I'll give him a call next week.

Heres some info on the T98. http://www.novak-adapt.com/knowledge/transmissions/manual/t98/

Today's project was the transmission again. I'm not going to change it anytime soon, so I needed to stop the water intrusion and see just how bad it looks on the interior. Toward that ends, I pulled the top plate and shifter.

I think the water was getting in through the top plate gasket. The bolts were fairly loose and the gasket wasn't in very good shape.

The rest of the transmission isn't in very good shape either. It's had water in it for a long while. There are rust pits on most of the gears.

I think this is first.

Second.

Third.

The bearing surfaces don't look to be in bad shape.

I have heard that these are pretty much indestructible. I'm kind of amazed that it made it 1000 miles home.

It's buttoned back up with form-a-gasket and fresh oil. I guess I'll be seeing how much longer it holds up.

Clark 5 speed overdrive transmission https://knoxville.craigslist.org/pts/5458087715.html I thought this may be pertinent

I'd definitely be running 85w140 in that one, maybe with a bottle of Lucas trans fix or STP too.

How do you get four speeds out of that?... is the straight cut gear first and reverse?

In reply to BrokenYugo:

That's what went in it today.

In reply to Doc Brown:

I think so. Big gear is 1st and reverse, middle gear is 2nd, small gear is 3rd and 4th drives straight through. That also explains why 4th is so much quieter than all the others.

Yeah, that is how it works, the big straight cut gear slides for 1st, for reverse it stays in the neutral position and a long idler slides in. Pretty sure the thing going around the gear in the first pic is the reverse shift fork. All RWD transmissions get their 1:1 "gear" by locking the input to the output and not loading any of the gears.

Today's project was getting the floor pans ready to go back in. Once again, I forgot to take any before pictures, but this is what they looked like installed.

Years of leaking roof had left them a rusted mess. They got cleaned up and painted.

Primed.

And painted. Black, because it's what I had on the shelf.

Here's a good one. The tires must have been worse than I thought. Yep, that's a blowout. I'm glad I wasn't around to hear it. I probably would have had to change my shorts. I'm betting that was loud. Tires have now moved up the list a good ways. That's going to hurt. $$$$

And the floors are back in.

Before, from the previous post.

After.

I still need to come up with a boot for the shifter, and I will be pulling this all back out to clean up and paint the rest of the floor and firewall.

More to come.

Ouch! Glad it happened when you weren't driving. I have had two go, one time the guy next to me got off the freeway too because he wasn't sure it wasn't his... It's crazy loud. Like someone in the back with a shotgun loud.

Every time I read an update, I say to myself, "I can't believe he drove that from WI to SC."

Scottah wrote: Every time I read an update, I say to myself, "I can't believe he drove that from WI to SC."

Mmmhhhmmmmm...

Glad the blowout happened while stationary and with no one nearby!

Question- what's the second short lever next to the shifter? Two speed rear end?

To keep the momentum going, some inspiration for you from last weekend's Piston Power Show:

In reply to XLR99:

The second lever is the emergency/parking brake. It actuated a band type driveshaft brake.

Ah ok that makes sense now, looking at the pic further up the page with the floorboards out.

Again a weekend of no progress. My wife was Race Chair for a SCCA club race, so I spent the weekend helping her.

I did track down another source of water intrusion this afternoon. This is the joint between the bus body and the B600 front end. Or what is left of it.

Like most of the rubber on the bus, it's badly deteriorated and was allowing water to run down the back of the dash and onto the floor.

I just knew there was going to be lots of rust under it, but the original bus paint used some outstanding stuff. It was amazingly rust free.

As a temporary measure, I put a bead of paintable caulk in the crack to stop the water, but depending on how well that works, it may not be temporary.

More to come.

Side window finished up and reinstalled.

This is excellent. So much work to do, though! Man, I thought a project car was a lot of effort, a project bus that's also a home? Yowza.

Keith Tanner wrote: This is excellent. So much work to do, though! Man, I thought a project car was a lot of effort, a project bus that's also a home? Yowza.

I second that.

In reply to Keith Tanner:

It is a enormous project. Probably bigger than I realized at first. Fun though.

I'm hoping to have it painted, rolling, and camping in 2 months, but project creep is going to be a problem. It's already rearing its ugly head.

I was feeling lazy today. All you get is the other shift boot.

More to come.