when it rains it pours

Well all the work to get the cuda ready for the first cruise night of the year went bust for me! Here I was on Monday polishing and putting the finall details on the car so I could be all spiffy looking Friday night. On Wednes I had to go to the post office to drop off a package . The post office is about 7 miles from home.The longest drive at one time for this car in 20+ years. Motor was humming along beautifully,car was steering well (never got it aligned yet ), heads were turning my way.....all is good .Then it hits, Im going along about 40 mph and accelerate up a hill .... tranny starts to rattle!!!! Now it does it in all gears anytime I am above 2500 rpm. After the post office its straight home. Decided to miss the cruise night and pull the tranny to see if it might be clutch related or not (i had reasons to hope it was clutch) everything is good there so up on the table and out comes the mainshaft.

Here I must explain the history of this tranny. I bought this tranny brand new from Ma Mopar in about 70 for wa-a-y too much money and sent it out to have the tranny re geared and slick shifted before I even tried to put it in a car. Many $$$$ later its time to install in my hemi roadrunner. After mounting it I didnt like where I needed to cut the floor for the shifter and removed it. It seems that I bought a hemi cuda 4 speed by mistake(short tailshaft) . Flash forward 30+ years, 3000 miles and a couple thousand dollars later to Wednesday and that expensive noise .

Now back to the tranny . after a complete dis assembly and inspection I find absolutely nothing wrong, infact it looks and specs out to better than new. Back together and into the car, figuring I can just live with it . Get ready to test drive and all seems fine .......until I back out of the garage and the clutch pedal gets weird . A couple of pumps later the clutch is all but gone. So....back in the garage and under the car I go . Only to find the t/o bearing came off the fork !!! Well not being one who admits defeat easily I refuse to pull the tranny again and start to "fish" ( no pun intended) the t/o into place. several hours later I have it and I am ready for the test drive I started this morning . Up the road I go and guess what!!!........... I didnt improve a damn thing

Now this is where the pour after the rain comes in. During all this I go to jump into the wifes car about 6 am this morning to go get gear lube for the cuda and .........its dead as it gets . OK now we have 2 dead cars and no gears lube for the one that might run. Almost as bad as having a pack of ciggerettes and no matches.

I sit here now at 10:30 pm typing in this tale of woe and still havent gotten her car fixed, my car safe to drive and remember that pack of cigarettes !!! I'm out...... but I do have matches !!!!