Working on the transmission

With the car back from Auburn, I'm now going to try and address the only thing I didn't like about the whole festival - the car struggled to get into 4th, never gave me 1st, and rarely gave me reverse!

As I studied the forums and the club literature it became very clear that the transmissions on these cars were not as 'debugged' as they could have been.

However, given that the transmission in my car is 70+ years old, I am more than willing to cut it a bit of slack.

Here's a great line from a 1984 booklet on the Cord transmission by Sid Ayers:

"After 24 years experience in driving these cars I'm convinced that the only real problem

with the gear box is that it was not Idiot-proof, and that 90% of the catastrophies occuring

within the unit were caused by DRIVER abuse thru ignorance and/or stupidity.

Probably the No. I cause of gear failures were due to downshifting into the wrong gear

while at speed, including low gear!

The mere fact that there was no mechanical connection between the drivers hand and the

inner workings of the transmission was an invitation for troubles."

Needless to say, I'm sure I haven't helped the transmission..

When I took the front cover off and began testing the logic of the transmission (remember, it's an electric shift - see one of my earlier posts on the gear selector), I noticed that the arm on the cross shifter had nearly an inch and a half of "play"

The arm is held onto the shaft by a Woodruf key and in normal operation there should be no movement at all. What I really noticed was that this play made 4th and 1st gears really tough to 'get' to, much less get out of.

Here's the amazing thing - I called J.K. Howell Cord Parts of Wellington Kansas (J.K. was a true Cord scholar and a bit of a character according to what I've read - he passed away in 2007) - and they not only had the part for $35 (! cheap !), but they had a cross shifter shaft , seals, and bushing 'kit' for $70! The parts are on their way.

I'll post some pictures of the transmission cross shifter as I work on it.

We've just returned from the 54th Annual ACD Club Reunion in Auburn. 10231 S was there, was judged, and was in the parade.

I am absolutely thrilled that we won a 2nd in class award for the car - not bad for it's first time out!

The judging consisted of two major parts - the first being 'In Motion' where I had to pull up to the judging stand and then:

• Turn off the car
• Work the parking brake
• Turn on/off the lights
• Apply the brake
• Honk the horn
• Start the car (this was a great part - the car runs so quietly, one judge asked me twice to start the motor!)
• Put the car into first, pull away, then shift into second.

The second part was the actual interior/exterior/mechanical judging. Generally the judges don't like the owners hanging around, so I looked at the other amazing cars in Eckhart Park.

This is me trying to sound like I know anything about Auburns to my sister and brother-in-law (Katy and Mark Cripe of Columbus, Ohio)

I thought I saw at least 22 Auburn Speedsters of the 16 made...

Here's the car (and me) on the Friday night before the judging - one of the great 'unofficial' parts of the Reunion is to take the cars down to 9th and Jackson, park them and walk around downtown Auburn. Once you come up 9th, anything goes, car-wise. Street-rods, classics, muscle-cars, you name it - it's there. I don't think it broke up until after 2am this year. I, however, left around 9 pm to take the car and polish it back at the shop.

Here's Mark figuring out why I was so glad to have him and his family stay at our house over the weekend. It's probably about midnight when this was taken, and I'm polishing the fence on the driver side. Once we polished the car, even at night it simply glowed.

Here's the whole family, after the judging and before the parade. Given the company around me, I hoped they wouldn't ask me to leave the park! There were some truly beautiful cars there.

I was especially glad to see Pat and Joe's Cadet Gray Westchester there. When I first met them, I saw 'the Gray car' and right then knew that they were far crazier than me! However, the Westchester looks great and it is a real testament to the Leahy's ability with these cars.

This last one is the man himself, Pat Leahy, and me after the car won a 2nd in class. Pat is truly gifted when it comes to working on and understanding what makes these cars go. I'm holding the award, but it really belongs to him.