I finally managed to get the car out for a short test drive. As of now, everything seems to be working well. I still have a nasty exhaust leak (or 2) to take care of thanks to the damage done by the old driveshaft, but I'll try to get that addressed within the next week or so.
So here's what I ran into:
Once the trans was in, I took the car for a short drive around the block. I noted a definite lack of clutch pedal travel, and there was a chirping noise whenever the clutch was depressed, or when the car was in neutral and the clutch was at rest.
I had my lovely assistant Rachel get in the car and depress the clutch while I was underneath looking for the lack of pedal travel. It didn't take long to find it.
When I first installed the trans, I'd noticed I had an extra 1/2"+ between the clutch pushrod and fork when I went to adjust it. I wasn't sure what caused that, but I went ahead and adjusted it anyways. When I had Rachel depress the clutch pedal, I noted the back of the fork was actually bottoming out at the back of the fork window on the bellhousing before she got the pedal all the way to the floor. This is what led me to initially believe the fork had gotten bent when the Muncie scattered. As such, I'd ordered a new McLeod HD fork and adjustable throwout bearing.
When the parts arrived, I pulled the trans back out, but upon comparison of the old fork to the new McLeod unit, two things were noted. First, the old fork wasn't bent after all. Second, the McLeod is the later `72 up style that's about 1" longer from the pivot ball to the pushrod cup, so it wasn't going to work.
I reinstalled the old fork with the new McLeod throwout bearing, and as it turns out, I wound up needing all 3 spacers to get my clutch fork to rest at the correct 5°-7° forward rest position.
Here's how it wound up once everything was back together.
This brought my clutch pedal travel back and also improved the Z bar geometry that had never been really right from day 1--which I'd attributed to the bar being a repop POS, but that's another rant for another time.
Still at a loss as to why everything required such a different adjustment, I went back over everything. As it turns out, I'd failed to notice that the new clutch disc was significantly thicker than the old unit was--approx. .285" for the old disk (which had less than 100 miles on it mind you) and approx. .345" for the new disk. The extra .060" thickness caused the fingers on the pressure plate to compress further than they had with the original disk, which increased the gap between the pressure plate fingers and the throwout bearing--that explained why I'd lost so much travel.
Thinking I had everything resolved, I put it back together. As fate would have it, while my clutch pedal travel was much improved, the chirping was still there.
I pulled the trans back out, took some pics and made another call to Jody. He asked me to send him the pics, and he spotted what was causing the chirping noise almost immediately.
Note the very tip of the input shaft in the pic below:
See where it's been polished? That was caused by the new pilot bearing I'd installed when I replaced the trans. I <span style="font-weight: bold">thought</span> I'd purchased a quality unit, a National PB656HD:
As it turns out, it's not a true bronze bushing. Jody instructed me to test it with a magnet to see if it was ferrous--which it was. Apparently these units are known to cause problems since they aren't a true bronze bushing. This one was grabbing the input shaft and causing it to turn at all times when the trans wasn't in gear, and that was the cause of the chirping noise.
I called my friend "Ohio" George Montgomery to see if he had any of the old "good" bushings in stock, and he assured me he did so I sent Rachel out to pick one up. <span style="font-style: italic">Just in case,</span> I sent a magnet along with her...turns out it's a good thing I did.
George dug out a very old box of bushings, and much to everyone's surprise, every single one of them was magnetic. He did a little more digging and found an Allstar ALL26112 extended pilot bearing hanging on the wall. These are intended for use when a block plate has been installed to ensure adequate engagement of the input shaft to the pilot bushing.
A quick check with the magnet revealed it to be a true bronze bushing--but would the extra thickness turn out to be an issue?
I removed the old bushing and measured the difference between the two bushings. The only difference was the thickness of the extra flange on the front of the Allstar bushing, and there was ample room on the input shaft to accommodate it--not only accommodate, but provide even more support for the input shaft.
Another thing worth noting re: these two bushings--
When I first built this car I installed an identical National bushing, and I noted it was extremely difficult to install, actually raising up a burr around the outside edge when I drove it in the back of the crank. I didn't care for that so I removed it, bought another new bushing, and this time I lightly sanded the OD before installing it. This helped, but it was still an awfully tight fit. Of course, I ran into the exact same situation this time around, but once I removed the "old" (new) National bushing, I noted that the Allstar bushing was MUCH easier to install, only requiring a few firm taps to go in where the National required far more effort.
SO...once again I reinstalled the trans (last Saturday) and I've been patiently waiting for a break in the rain to get the car back out. The opportunity presented itself this afternoon, and I'm happy to report the chirping is gone and the trans shifts like butter. :thumbsup:
There are a few other things to note on this installation:
1) Since I had to install shims between the motor mounts and the engine block to raise the engine enough to clear the Milodon oil pan, I am unable to raise the back of the trans enough to get the driveline angle where it needs to be. With the old Muncie I had the engine at ~4° rearward tip, but with the Legend box I'm at 5° and have no more room to raise the trans. I'm not sure how I'm going to address this just yet, but when I do I'll post it up.
2) The shifter sits in the opening beautifully. However, I found the shifter arm to be too far towards the drivers side with it mounted on the left side of the adapter as shown below:
Continued...