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.