As my driveway is shiny and new I cannot drive on it, so even though it is “Jeep: day 5” I have yet to dislodge the gas tank from the rear end (insert childish giggle here). Despite my anxious yearnings to slice and dice the newest member of the fleet I had to find a garage project to work on. My friend Rob drives a 62 Ranchero that we had done a transmission overhaul on a few months ago but it lost 3rd gear again later that day. He had pulled it back out and it was sitting in the corner of my garage so I removed a few retainers and dumped the gears out onto a piece of cardboard.

The problem was obvious: the third gear syncro had welded itself onto the input shaft. The cause was less obvious. We had used wheel bearing grease to install the needle bearings, perhaps the oil hole was plugged with grease? As my first 2 cars were rancheros of that era I’ve rebuilt these 3 speeds before without any problems so I didn’t think that was it. We rebuilt the transmission the first time because of a lost 3rd gear but that syncro (and the input bearing) were broken, not hot. In the end I blame the pilot bushing which we had not changed. Upon close inspection it was hogged out significantly enough to seal the case in my mind.

I collected new parts from various local suppliers and laid it all out on a towel. DARN IT! HOW DID I LOSE A NEEDLE BEARING?!?!?!?!?!?! This seems to happen to me every time. There are 53 needle bearings of 2 different sizes and somehow I ended up with 52. So much for getting this thing back together tonight.

Here is a very steam punky picture of the parts all laid out.