[Jacques Reed]

Good Day,

Thought I might dust off this old thread.

Been doing a lot of various work on the F15-A since the last post here. Much of it has been covered elsewhere such as bending up new brake and fuel lines, fabricating wiring harnesses, making hand brake cable clips etc.

Recently I have been rebuilding my transmission and in the process, swapping NOS gears and shafts from one case to another.

Thought the following may be of interest:

Removing the countershaft is fairly straightforward. A bit of persuasion with a hammer and brass drift is all that is needed. Getting access to the reverse idler shaft is another matter.
I made up a mini Jack as shown in the picture using a bit of ½” UNC threaded rod 4” long, ¾” pipe 2-1/2” long, 3 x ½-UNC nuts, I x washer, and 2 x 13/16” AF spanners. The short one I cut down from an old bent one of my Dad's
It worked very well. On one transmission the shaft did not want to budge easily so I heated the boss at the shaft with just a propane torch not wanting to put too much heat into the casting or risk breaking the boss with too much force on the jack. After about 30 seconds of applied heat it moved very easily. Probably just needed to soften up the gunk between the shaft and the boss. The brass drift in the countershaft holes keeps the cut down spanner from turning and frees up a hand in a tight space.

I salvaged the bearing retainer rings from a third transmission. Struggled with a screwdriver slipping off the rings, and chasing the rings around the groove in the case. I thought if I could grip them that would be an easier way to remove them. After trying various pliers which could not get the right angle onto them I remembered my Vice Grip nut holder pliers.
It worked perfectly. It has the correct angle to reach inside the bearing pocket to grip the rings. Pulled them out in about 10 seconds each after wasting half an hour trying other methods.
Those nut holder pliers are a great tool and especially if there is no one around to hold a spanner "on the other side". And as shown, they can do other things that are not their main purpose.

Hope this is of some interest.

Cheers,