Due to arrive soon

[94touring]

So which transaxle do you think will arrive first, the new one or the rebuilt one? 

Jesus I don't know but I'm at the 3 week mark with the 2nd guy and nothing yet.  I was told 2-3 weeks.  I need spares on hand just to bypass the year long wait to rebuild one in the future. It's maddening.

[94touring]

Holy smokes 

[BruceK]

The painted bumpers really look great on those Baywindows. So much better than if they were chrome. 

[94touring]

I should have emphasized to the builder this is going in a bus, because the drive flanges are the wrong size.  Easy to swap out at least. Tomorrow I'm going to temporarily fit it in place to temporarily mount the motor.  This will allow me to finish off the custom exhaust routing and determine how the new oil lines and cooler will be mounted.  The drive flange job I'll probably want to do with it on the bench as opposed to in the bus.  Only takes me about 20 minutes to swap it all out either way. 

Back to the brake job.  After replacing literally everything and then making adjustments on the rear shoes, realized that with the brake pedal pressed all the way down I could still rotate the wheels with my hands. There was minimal friction. Only thing left was the proportioning valve.  Pulled it apart and it was all muddy and filthy, but all I got was a firmer pedal on reassembly and still no brakes.  Ordered an adjustable proportioning valves, some fittings, and T fitting to give it a new shot.  Well the damn new proportioning valve wasn't allowing any fluid to pass by at all.  So zero brakes in the rear.  Confused by what was wrong I took it out and went to just the T fitting. Low and behold the rear brakes finally brake.  Of course it wasn't until after that I opened up this new proportion valve to discover it needed some grease or blob of whatever they assemble it with cleaned out.  Figured I'll do some hard braking to see how the bias is and if I will need to yet again dump fluid everywhere to put the new proportioning valve back in. For now just happy I caught the fact the rears weren't really working.  Not even sure they ever did since I've owned it!

[MiniDave]

Cool, now you'll have both more go and more stop!

[94touring]

Yesterday was full of fabrication.  I got the new transaxle in to mount the engine so I could fab up the exhaust. Except that turned into fabbing up a custom bracket to mount the new transaxle. What I learned was Brazil used a different nose cone than everyone else. The nose cone is the front part of the transaxle that has the "hockey stick" that shifts the gears. The end of the hockey stick that protrudes from the nose cone attaches to the shift linkage that runs under the floor and then works it way up to the shifter in the cab. Bugs and busses use different nose cones, but they can interchange because the bolt patterns are the same on the transaxle.  67 and earlier busses (the style that matches my engine) have the hockey stick part sitting lower, which in my case wouldn't align with the shift rod because brazil decided to make it like the post 67 year busses that used a different transaxle and mount. A bug nose cone does align with the shift rod.  But neither of those will work because the mounting bracket doesn't align. A bug nose cone can be fabricated to work and was what I ultimately did, as a temporary solution or if I ever get in a bind and can't find a Brazilian nose cone. Now, the Brazilian nose cone has the hockey stick part even further up, which allows the mounting bracket to line up.  This is something the internet doesn't explain, and when you call the transaxle guy he has no clue either.  Also finding one of these nose cones was difficult.  I finally found one and ordered it.  Temporarily have the cobbled together mounting bracket in place  for the bug style to work using some quarter inch plate I had leftover from fabbing the tow hitch.  Another issue I had prior to all this was the hockey sticks are apparently different from Brazil as well.  Brazil must be longer.  A standard bus hockey stick, which also differs from a bug in that the angle of the selector end is different, is about an inch shorter than Brazil. What this creates is a 1st and 3rd gear throw that is farther forward than you'd want.  2nd and 4th are more in the middle where you'd expect nuetral to be. Now being the time to correct all this, I put the bus in 2nd, which puts the shifter at it's furthest throw back, and disconnected the one coupling that joins the shift linkages  under the bus. Once the coupling was disconnected, I then went back into the bus and put the shifter where I wanted it.  Then it was back under the bus to measure the new distance between the linkages that the coupling connect. Cut the coupling in half and welded up an extension and voila I have a shifter that isn't throwing my knuckles into the dash.  THEN I got this exhaust put together.  Very tight fit but this is it in progress.  I will need to adjust the exit once the bumper is on.

Pics to illustrate what I'm talking about starting with a nosecone.

[MiniDave]

With two mufflers the exhaust should be quiet at least....

[94touring]

With two mufflers the exhaust should be quiet at least....

That's the goal anyways.