Friday bug/rail.

 Friday…

Worked till noon…

Got home and found that Shadow was fine as hoped/expected.  Recall that she used to just stay home all day in her back room, but then suddenly had an issue with that and started trying to dig her way through doors/walls and if we tried the crate she just tore up her pillow and was getting where she could actually pull the crate apart to get out.

So, since then she’s been staying at Grandma daycare when Sara and I are at work.

We’ve only left her home alone a few times for maybe a couple hours in the last year or two.  She seems fine as long as we don’t close the doors to keep her in the back room.  If she has the whole house she’s fine.  (though she generally just stays on her couch in the back room either way).

So My parents went to visit sis in Boston this weekend and were gone Friday so we left Shadow home alone for the morning.

Anyway, she was fine.  YAY!

 

Afternoon I went and played with the bug.  I’m contemplating calling it the "Rail" instead of the "Bug" because the more I look into it, the more it appears it’s more often called a Sand Rail instead of Dune Buggy.  But there’s not much sand around here, so I’m familiar with Dune Buggy, but not so much Sand Rail.  (OK, now I’m thinking about it and Dune Buggy doesn’t make a lot more sense since DUNE would imply sand again…)  Anyway, Sand Rail sounds cooler I think anyway…  But I’m concerned if anyone will know what I’m talking about if I say that.  I’ll have to see what it shows up more often as while I’m researching…

 

Anyway.

IIRC… (Warning, heavy car junk content)

I think Friday afternoon I started further monkeying with the tranny…

Used my new hex socket to remove fill plug…  No signs of oil.

Went to drain plug.  No access from underneath.  Went to get drill/hole saw to make access.  Battery dead.  Go for spare battery.  Also dead.(rather expected since they sit for months at a time in various states of charge and out in the cold.)

No way to remove nose cone from transmission with it in place.

Remove rear tranny mounts, still not much movement.

Get my new triple square bit and get the bolts that hold the CV shafts to the tranny out.

Tranny wiggles now, (and car rolls) but definitely going to need to disconnect that front mount.  Two more bolts from below and it’s out.  And nicely doesn’t weigh much.

Nose cone off of tranny and I see the "hockey stick" I’ve heard reference to and see how it would slide these gear sliders in and out.  I spend probably an hour or two monkeying around, but by the end of the day or the next, I pretty well put it together in my head that it’s stuck in 3rd gear.  Still doesn’t explain why the input shaft doesn’t turn.

By then I had enough charge in a drill battery to make a hole for future draining of the tranny fluid.

Oh, and I also removed the drain plug.  There are signs of something oily, but not really any oil in the tranny to speak of.  It also still doesn’t really want to turn as it should nor exit 3rd gear.

I think I may have started putting the new lugnuts on as well.