Here's something that's probably not seen that often. It's a "boot assy. starter pedal rod" according to the parts manual. I'll have to make a new one eventually so I figured I could undo the stitching in the canvas and make a pattern if anyone's interested.
I took the tranny apart today since it was pretty near full of water and I assumed it would be a rusted pile of junk. (the only place water could get in is down the shift lever and through the mechanism in the tranny top so it must have taken 20 or 30 years to accumulate that much in our dry climate.) Lo and behold, the old fluid was the consistency of grease and had everything coated and the water did no damage whatsoever! None of the parts show any signs of wear or rust and the bearings rotate smoothly after being cleaned up.
I needed the bellhousing off the military motor but it had sat for 30+ years with no head on it so was severely rusted up. On those motors you have to remove the clutch and flywheel before you can remove the bellhousing because there are four bolts that go into the block from the rear in front of the flywheel. There was no way I could get the pistons out to rotate the crank and remove the clutch bolts so I resorted to the gas axe and torched the crank off through the back throw, then pried the flywheel with the end of the crank attached out of the block and removed the bellhousing. There's more than one way to skin a cat!
