How To: C15a Wire-3 restoration

[rob love]

Originally Posted by Grant Bowker

Possible problems with sealed bearings:
Fully sealed, you will be relying on the grease within the bearing only, no transmission oil will get in, so new oil in the transmission only helps the gears, same old lubricant in the bearings.
Sealed one side (outer face), solves the issue above but no lubricant reaches the original style seals to help them slide on the shaft so they are likely to have a shorter life.
My choice would be new seals, separate from the bearing, running on original shaft (as long as it shows no grooving). I forget whether the gear clusters are one piece or pressed onto the shafts. If they are pressed assemblies, adding speedisleeves to repair scored shafts could make them difficult to take apart if you ever need to separate the cluster. But on the mileage we do on restored trucks what are the chances of that?

I, too, have pondered whether to leave the seals or not. Really, for all the miles we will ever put on, the grease within the bearings will be more than enough. I have also removed just the seal on the oil side. I normally pack a little grease into the output seal, so my take on it is if there is not enough lubricant over time that the output seal suffers, then the seal really isn't necessary.

Where these sealed bearings really shine is on the input shafts of the transmissions, especially the Ford CMPs and the Willys Jeeps, neither of which has a particularly effective seal.

[Jordan Baker]

While waiting for the armature to arrive I’ve decided to pull apart the transmission. Following the steps in the maintenance manual everything came apart as it should. All looks really good. Tomorrow will be spent cleaning up the housing and degreasing the gears.

[Jordan Baker]

Some more pictures of the greasy bits.

[Bruce Parker (RIP)]

The inside looks pretty good. The things to look out for are slop where the main shaft inserts into the front input shaft, and that the reverse gear slides well its shaft. Apparently this gets little lubrication and can bind. All bolts on the rear cast (or white metal) bearing cap need to be snug as the output flange will sheer off the bolts and crack the cap if not. Have a good look at the cap to make sure it isn't cracked already as many are.

[Jordan Baker]

Left the housing sitting in a bucket of degreaser solution for a few hours. Took it out and scrubbed it down then hosed it it off with a hot water hose. I then used a wire wheel to clean it up and remove the surface rust. I still had to go back with some small scrapers and aresol parts cleaner to get a few hard spot. Man that 75 years of grease really gets hard. Some spots were like chipping cement. Lastly brought it inside and washed it down with the marine clean from POR and then some metal prep to get rid of any final rust.

Now the hard part what colour to paint it? From what I have read here on the forum they may have come Chevy grey, semi gloss black or even have been painted the final body colour of LG#3, SCC2 or SCC15

[Phil Waterman]

Hi Jordan

I bought a NOS transmission a couple of years ago and it had been sprayed or dipped in cosmoline which had dried out. Took same sort of treatment soaking with degreaser then washing down with 160F hot water to get it clean.

You nailed the problem of cleaning hot water works much better than cold or even room temp.

How do all the bearing look? Was there any sign of water having been in the case, ie any pitting on the gears?

Enjoy your restoration reports.

Cheers Phil

PS I've painted the last couple of transmissions after assembly but before adding gear oil with Por15 black. Seems to help seal the gasket edges from leaking.

[Jordan Baker]

Thanks Phil

There was some very minor rusting on two of the gear right at the bottom of their rotation. When I drained the oil about two teaspoons of water came out first. I’ve ordered new bearings via eBay yesterday. Will hopefully have them next week. The bushings in the reverse gear are still in great shape with no side to side play on the shaft. I’ve cleaned up the gears using a brass wire wheel on an electric motor. That removed all of the rust scale. There is no pitting and very minimal wear on the gears. The cast bearing retainer housings were also polished up on the brass wire wheel. I’ve got all of the bolts and washers being cleaned up in my media tumbler. All in all this has gone smoothly.

For my colour I decided on using Ford Grey. I know I know but the online Chevy folks say it’s a good representation of the Chevy grey. I also figured the lighter colour would be easier to spot any leaking.