Another boring old story from the old days

"Around" 71 when stationed at NAS Miramar, my good friend Gary (RIP) had a bought new 70 Chev K2500. He thought it would be cool to have an "8 ball" shifter ball, but the place he went to had none, so he settled for a cue ball. I thought this was such a great idea, I bought one too. So he took them to work and drilled and tapped them.

Soon we noticed an odd noise, kind of a "sussssing" sound in some gears. After about 2 months of driving my 69 Road Runner and his Chev, we decided IT WAS A SMALL AIR SPACE in the ball from drilling the hole a bit deep that somehow caused the sound.

The problem? For him, none. He first thought the transmission was getting noisy, but it was the shift ball. He removed the ball, finally, and that was that

The problem? I KEPT my ball, and it turned out THE BIG BALL BEARING between the main and tail sections of the case was failing, and it REALLY WAS noisy!!! This, coupled with noisy tires, the radio, and loud exhaust, made things that much harder to "detect." The bearing finally "lost a ball" (or three) which trashed part of the transmission.

It allowed the main shaft to "walk" fore and aft some amount, which tore up the pilot end into the main drive gear (input shaft/ pinion). This ended up destroying BOTH the input shaft AND the main shaft. The dealer would have to order a mainshaft. "San Diego Metalspray" talked me into "we can turn down the shaft and press a hardened sleeve on there and it will be STRONGER THAN NEW."

WRONG. The sleeve turned out to be "not so hard" and ate up ANOTHER input shaft as well as finishing off that mainshaft.

NOW THE THING goes back together with another new input shaft, a new mainshaft, and a VERY SMALL CHIP out of one tooth on the cluster.

THAT CHIP LATER FAILED!!!! AND DESTROYED!!! ANOTHER!!! input shaft!!!!

I had that 833 out of there FOUR TIMES before I got it right.

Not one photo of the old girl, anymore.