56 vert Jimmy Sprinkles

[TomVaughan64]

Great details. Thank you for posting this for all of us to follow along. My bucket list includes rebuilding one of these transmissions. Your posts will be a great reference. I have a 10-ton benchtop press with 16-inch max opening. Will that work for this type of transmission work or do I need one of the floor stand models?
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Tom

"Begin with the end in mind"
Stephen Covey

"Keep focused and seeking knowledge, you will never find disappointed, only small hiccups!"
Jimbo

56 Old Speed Euro Deville Influenced Build Returning
Returning My 55 Ragtop To Stock

[esde]

[esde]

*fixed to add all the missing pictures*
Getting closer to sealing this thing up. But, I did have a few more stumbling blocks, which I will detail here. I will say, that if I was simply rebuilding some parts back into their original case things would be much easier.
The differential, it seemed negligent to have everything this far apart and not check the axle spades and diff side gears..

After removing the ring gear bolts, the carrier splits and the side gears and axles are accessible.
The driver side axle spade, fulcrums, and side gear all looked nice.

\
Some minor wear that I polished out

The passenger side gear and spiders are retained by a pin that is peened into the diff housing. In this case the way it was peened in meant grinding and driving it out, and then re peening it was dodgy. I took it as a sign from some higher power and left it alone. Rinsed it with brake cleaner, and reassembled the diff. Upon retorquing the 6 diff bolts to 45ft/lbs I felt one give and carefully backed it out

.
Kamax 10.9 bolt

I managed to pull 6 bolts from my parts stash, and swapped all the bolts. Blue loctite and safety wired them
s1 driver side differential shim is 4mm and things are starting to look good

There is a freeplay spec for all 4 gears on the pinion shaft, .10mm is the minimum and .25mm is the max. Gears 1-3 were good, but I was just over .25mm on 4th gear. I ended up sanding .006" off of the 4th gear bushing and added the same amount of shim under the pinion bearing. This way the gear stack overall length was unchanged, but the extra clearance was removed..
Time to tighten the pinion nut, to 85ft/lbs.
I clamped a worn out 1/2 slider in the vice, and set the pinion stack into it. Tightened and locked the tab
Finally getting to the shift fork adjustment
You remove the main input shaft to access the reverse shift fork adjustment
Here is the bolt, The reverse spur gear is directly under it, you can see it's half contacting first gear.

Slide the fork so the gears makes full centered contact when reverse is engaged, and tighten the 11mm bolt, then check neutral to make sure it doesn't foul on anything

Next, 3/4 shift fork, the adjustment bolt is through this hole.

The correct adjustment is with the shift rail in it's neutral detent, and the slider centered on the hub. Now move the fork so it is as centered in the slider groove as you can get it, and lock the bolt.
1/2 shift fork, this took a while to feel confident about the adjustment.

For some reason there is a little more fore/aft play in the slider when it's in neutral, so finding the right position for the fork took some experimenting. The idea is that in neutral, none of the shifting forks should be pressing any of the hubs, so everything freewheels, this is often referred to as a "clean neutral".
That was enough for one night. Found some magnetic drain plugs in the stash, and started looking at the axle tubes to R&R the boots. Ordered some threebond 1184 for the case halves and went to bed!
SD
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modok wrote:
Bent cranks are silent but gather no moss. I mean, ah, something like that.

[esde]

CLOSER
Got the Axle tubes pressed apart. NOTE: you drive the lock pin out from the shock mount side, and that pin is tight so get the biggest hammer. Once it's out get everything in the press like so

It comes apart easily enough, and cleaning the grease off is as bad as you imagine it will be. But it's worth it, cleaned, painted, and with new one piece boots ready to go

Here you can see the groove that the lock pin engages. I measured and made a scratch at the approximate depth the housing gets pressed to

I thought I had a better pic of pressing it back together, so use your imagination.

Used a little pen light to look into the lock pin bore, so I could see exactly when the groove was lined up, then drove the pins home
Triple checked everything inside the case. Wiped the flange down w acetone, and gave it a smear of my favorite sealer, Threebond 1184.

Together and axles tubes just hung for decoration.

Nosecone next, there are a few shims there, and one of the mount studs is bent..
SD
_________________
modok wrote:
Bent cranks are silent but gather no moss. I mean, ah, something like that.

[kaieric]

wow! marvelous work!
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7/58 Beetle Cabrio RHD

[tehillah1]

Seth, your mechanical skills are amazing. Great detail on the tranny restoration.

[esde]

Since finishing the transmission I've been working on 10 things at once, and it doesn't feel like I'm making headway.. but things are moving along. I crawled under the car to scrape off the grease and grit, and give everything a better look. With the engine out I can see the passenger rear is buckled slightly. Maybe you can pick it out in these pics

This side is ok

This side is pushed in about 3/4"

I have a few ideas on how I might push it back, but I'll let it go for now. If I have time and confidence later, maybe..
I got new seals for the nosecone and the cables junction, and spring plate bushings. Plus I'll give this a thorough cleaning

Got the new mounts installed on the trans. Nothing unusual, except the new ones require you to drill the mount for a 10mm stud (original was 8mm) and you need to grid the top of the mount for clearance

I have a few 36hp cases that are all getting prepped at the same time. I pulled the plugs on all of them and started tapping for new threaded plugs. You need 1/16, 1/8, and 1/4npt taps
These two are access to the cam supply passage, drill and tap for 1/16npt

On the other side, the tapped hole is 1/8npt, and the other is where the full flow elbow will go. It gets tapped for 1/4npt but first I have to fix the fact that it's off center

Mounted the case under the mill and centered the hole

Have to go slow tapping that as the case material is thin
Here it is done, you can see the tap where I plug the old oil pump supply

There's another 1/16 next to the crank pulley and a 1/8 on top next to the oil sender, and then I got to scrub three cases with bore brushes and solvent.
And lastly, I started on the heads. First step was to set up the mill and machine off the first fin, then I can flycut the heads to the new depth. Removing the fin is slow going, as it takes a few passes. First one down

I'm hoping too have the case ready for when the crank comes back, so I can spend some time mocking that up. Then make the final cuts on the heads and send them out for new valves.. or at least in my head thats how it works.
SD
_________________
modok wrote:
Bent cranks are silent but gather no moss. I mean, ah, something like that.

[TomVaughan64]

Great pictures! Thanks for the details photos and information.
_________________
Tom

"Begin with the end in mind"
Stephen Covey

"Keep focused and seeking knowledge, you will never find disappointed, only small hiccups!"
Jimbo

56 Old Speed Euro Deville Influenced Build Returning
Returning My 55 Ragtop To Stock

[esde]

Slogging right along..
I was stumped for a few days, because I ran into an issue where one axle seemed to be out too far. Wasn't sure what was going on, so I split the trans back open to look at the differential, and make sure the axles were in the differential carrier correctly. They were, and I wasn't sure what the hell was going on so I started measuring everything..
I had one of the axle ends pushed on 25" too far. So after some swearing, I fixed it all and everything is back to normal.
The frame horns are cleaned and rattle canned black. Replaced the Bowden tube, shift fork seal, trans mounts, and the rubber boot where all the cables exit the pan.
Under the car and ready

And in

Realized I forgot a new ground strap always something..
Backing plates and seal housings got blasted, they really needed it.

It's all painted, sitting on the radiator, hopefully it will be dried so I can reassemble the brakes tomorrow.
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modok wrote:
Bent cranks are silent but gather no moss. I mean, ah, something like that.

[VW_Jimbo]

Awesome progress Seth! You are moving quick on this car!
_________________
Jimbo

There is never enough time to do it right the first time, but all the time necessary the second time!

[obus]

you are doing this up right!! Looks like it fell to the right person for sure
_________________
July 1959 Mango Standard Bus aka Obus L346 L347 https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=256592&highlight=
June 1973 Pumpkin Orange Thing aka Othing L30H
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=711775&highlight=
1960 Paprika Red Karmann Ghia Convertible aka Schatze L452 built 5/20/60
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...highlight=
March 1956 Beetle convertible L41 Black

[esde]

OK, several evenings spent puzzling over the rear brakes, and some hours sorting through part numbers and progressive refinements.. all trying to figure out what parts I had on Jimmy Sprinkles (and what was supposed to be there)
I had assumed that the parts were original to the car, and wasn't sure when the brakes changed at the end of oval production, now I know.
Someone messaged me to point out that the rear brakes were later, and in fact they are 58-64. This was done by some previous owner, and was possibly because of several reasons: Wheel cylinders are larger and much cheaper, and the shoes and drums are easier to find.
I put everything back together with the new oval shoes and quickly realized that there was an issue. First clue was the shoes didn't sit correctly in the adjuster

later 58-64 shoes in front for comparison
Hard to see but I found some early adjusters and the slot is deeper and angled to match the shoe

But I swapped the oval adjusters on, but the drum wouldn't fit over the shoes.
So I started digging through the parts stash, and found some early brakes left over from the zwitter project, started measuring and comparing
The early cylinders are smaller diameter, and slightly shorter side to side, so no using early shoes with later hardware
Early brakes, for comparison

so the choice is to keep the current later brakes, or swap to the correct earlier brakes.. for simplicities sake I decided to keep the current later brakes, and will box this extra set of early brakes. One more thing to check though, I read that early and later brake backing plate thickness was different, and the bearing retainer bore depth was different to accommodate this. I read that the the difference was in the axle tube end casting and the bearing retainer, but no definitive answer one way or the other.. I doubt very much that the bore depth is different on both.
I did measure how much the bearing stuck out of the axle tube end on Jimmy sprinkles, and that matched the bearing bore depth of the (58-64) retainer. So for now it appears that if the bearing retainer matches the backing plate, things bolt up correctly. Clear as mud right?
I'll dig some early parts out to measure and solve this once and for all with pictures and numbers..
_________________
modok wrote:
Bent cranks are silent but gather no moss. I mean, ah, something like that.

[Käfer2]

Hi esde,
On my 11.56 bug I also mounted later brake baking plates 20 years ago, even later ones than you did. I mounted them with brake cylinders upwards (perhaps better to bleed the break system?), means changing left and right plate to keep the original (long) emergency brake cables going into the plates from behind.

Next step would be to change back to the original setup I still have, but until then, I leave it as it is.

My later brake backing plates are thicker than the original ones. No mechanical problems so far with the original bearing retainers.

But it took me 15 years and many attempts to realize
- to use only NOS thrust rings for the shaft seals (even good or "german" reproductions led to oil leakages in regular intervals)
- that (with the later and thicker brake backing plates in combination with the original axle tubes and original bearing retainers) thicker o-rings between "axle tube end casting" and plates must be installed to insure that NO oil sweats out between plates and "axle tube end casting" onto the plates (transmission side and brake side) over time.

Thicker o-ring:

I ended up using appoximately this o-ring-dimension:

[Käfer2]

I forgot to mention that you should mount the bearing retainers with the "dripping edge" pointing downwards, so that oil drips down from them in the oil deflectors mouted in your break drums in case of shaft seal oil leakages

[esde]

[esde]

DONE, Solved the conundrum of how to keep the later rear brakes on the car, without the bearings being loose in the retainers, and also not have them leak..
SO, for starters, I bolted the later brakes up, with the later bearing retainers, torqued the drums, and set a dial indicator like so.. to measure how much the bearing moved in and out
in this case it was .5mm

So, next step is to remove the retainer, and set it up to mill .5mm from the gasket surface.

Then I machined the pinched sides, so I can flip the retainers (so the oil drip lip hangs down)

Cleaned and de-burred

Reinstalled it, and it bolts up tight
When using the later thicker backing plates, I found a recommended procedure for no leaks:
-install the backing plate over the axle. Carefully push a large o-ring around the bearing, and back into the gap between the backing plate and bearing. Install a bearing retainer gasket, I used some tacky gasket adhesive to hold it. Follow with a second o-ring, which is used because the later bearing retainer has a bevel for it to squeeze into. Then the bearing cover.
Done at last. Perhaps this was more of a pain in the ass than actually rebuilding the transmission..
The bench was cleaned up from all the transmission parts, so time to take something else apart..
next victim

It's actually in decent condition, except for this brush

And the manual diagram shows a 2 brush starter but this one has 4??

checked the model #, it's a Porsche 356 starter

Super cool as it's rated at .5ps, where the stock starter is only .4ps. This will probably be better suited to spinning the new higher compression motor. Just need to find the correct brush set, which will undoubtedly have a Por$che price
And, some cleaning
The engine bay was filthy

Scrubbed, degreased, and buffed some of it

There is a super thick coating that seems to be sprayed up underneath, and I'm wondering what it is? It's really on there, not the kind of kind of goop that you get off with elbow grease. For now I'm leaving it, maybe if I run across a chance to try a steamer I'll see if it loosens it up.
Any thoughts?

Getting there..
Next step is tidying up the wiring, to get rid of some ugly splices and repairs..
SD
_________________
modok wrote:
Bent cranks are silent but gather no moss. I mean, ah, something like that.

[VW_Jimbo]

Have you tried oven cleaner on that gunk. Works on a lot of hard to remove stuff!

Car is coming together very nice! Keep going, you continue to inspire me!
_________________
Jimbo

There is never enough time to do it right the first time, but all the time necessary the second time!

[TomVaughan64]

I agree. It is inspiring to see that one person can accumulate knowledge and skills in so many areas. It gives me hope. Also, your stash of old parts is pretty impressive. (My wife may not agree with that last statement)

Keep up the quality work and thanks for sharing.
_________________
Tom

"Begin with the end in mind"
Stephen Covey

"Keep focused and seeking knowledge, you will never find disappointed, only small hiccups!"
Jimbo

56 Old Speed Euro Deville Influenced Build Returning
Returning My 55 Ragtop To Stock

[esde]

[VW_Jimbo]

Nice job! Yep, those starter brush assemblies are not installer friendly! Nice job making it happen! Are you painting it black or leaving it blasted metal?
_________________
Jimbo

There is never enough time to do it right the first time, but all the time necessary the second time!