Lost Second Gear

Haha, I was leaving school for home in the deuce tonight and I shifted into 2nd: No movement. 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th all work, but no second. I've already tried to search "no 2nd gear" and "no second gear" and "second gear bad" but the forums are not capable of searching my common terms apparently. I pulled the top cover off the tranny and everything seems to be in one piece, so nothing catastrophic. Anyone got any ideas? It's a spicer 3053a as far as I can tell from highway speeds, but the tag on it has come off.

Read this and report back:

http://www.steelsoldiers.com/showthread.php?41385-Tranny-fix

In the mean-time, if you need to move the truck in an emergency, start off in 3rd-low. It's between 1st and 2nd high, and with my truck seems to be a pretty good gear to start in.

Well, looks like I ought start looking for a new transmission or parts truck. It'll probably need a new shaft looking at that post.

I am looking for an experienced opinion here.

So, just for discussion's sake, since the hub isn’t supposed to turn on the shaft anyway, and if the shaft and hub aren’t too far gone, couldn't they be cleaned up new keys inserted and put back together or would the increased clearance between the parts due to slipping and grinding cause the new keys to shear quite easily?

Again, this is for discussion's sake. I don’t recommend anyone do this and I really wouldn’t want to take the darn thing apart twice to fix something that should have been done right in the first place…

anyway, opinions?

Keep your eyes and ears peeled for someone buying a truck for the axles, or scrapping one... that's probably your best bet aside from buying a whole parts truck.

Rattlewagon said:

I am looking for an experienced opinion here.

So, just for discussion's sake, since the hub isn’t supposed to turn on the shaft anyway, and if the shaft and hub aren’t too far gone, couldn't they be cleaned up new keys inserted and put back together or would the increased clearance between the parts due to slipping and grinding cause the new keys to shear quite easily?

Again, this is for discussion's sake. I don’t recommend anyone do this and I really wouldn’t want to take the darn thing apart twice to fix something that should have been done right in the first place…

anyway, opinions?

Click to expand...

I'm going to take a good look at mine tomorrow, and see if there are any fixes I can do. I think given this new problem, plus the issues I have with a loud 5th gear, and synchros, I'm not opposed to fixing this problem cheaply. I'm going to give memphis equipment and boyce a call tomorrow and see how much it is to get one shipped to me. I'da rather put another 3053a back in, and if I have to pay more for a good one, I might as well.

I got a trans. but i live in Ga if you know anbody comeing to the GA rally I cam bring it there

Is there a better TM that I'm missing? I found one with a transmission explosion that shows all of the parts of the transmission... except the insides, then I found one that says: if there's transmission problems, and the clutch is good, overhaul transmission. Is there a transmission overhaul manual? The TM page is kind of tough to read on my lcd due to the colors, so I have to highlight the text to read it clearly, maybe I missed it?

i don't know where brazosport is but you might want to IM texandy, i think he has a parts truck coming in pretty soon

The Brazosport area is the area where the Brazos River meets the Gulf of Mexico about 45 minutes south of Houston, 45 minutes west of Galveston, theres a seaport there, called the Port of Freeport. Lake Jackson, Richwood, Clute, Oyster Creek, Freeport, and Surfside Beach and maybe Jones Creek are all considered Brazosport, they all share the same schools in the Brazosport Independent School District. I'm in Lake Jackson which is a company town for DOW Chemical, large enough to have a Best Buy and a crappy mall, small enough to have a lot of open land around it.

I had no idea where Sinton is and I used to leave in Flour Bluff near the Laguna Madre near Corpus. Texas is crazy you learn about a new city or town all the time if you travel through it much.

Thanks for the info on the parts truck.

We lost a gear once and tore apart one of our 3053 trannys and rebuilt it ourselves without a TM.

It was easier than I thought it would be, I've never taken apart any kind of tranny before. I should have taken some pictures. We had to get a new shaft ( we bought it used from Boyce equipment ) and keys for ours, it cost around $200 to repair it.

PM me if you need any help, I'm down the Coast from you

Snarky said:

....................... Is there a transmission overhaul manual? ........

Click to expand...

TM9-2520-246-34 and -34P

Only 2nd missing....
Sheared keys and a spinning hub would make you loose 2nd AND 3rd.

G.

gringeltaube said:

TM9-2520-246-34 and -34P

Only 2nd missing....
Sheared keys and a spinning hub would make you loose 2nd AND 3rd.

G.

Click to expand...

That's weird... third is working.

Sheared keys and a spinning hub would make you loose 2nd AND 3rd.

Click to expand...

gringeltaube is right, when we lost 2nd, we lost 3rd as well.....

you might pull just the top off the tranny, ( while it's in the truck ) to see if you can manually push the 2nd gear in place, it could be a synchronizer problem. in which case a new synchronizer or complete top assembly would fix it.

I'm about a 1.5 hr drive from you, if you PM me your email I can send you the manual.

I pulled the tranny apart today. Lots of wore out looking gears, the end of the upper shaft near the output gear is worn down, and I know that at least one synchro is not any good. Boyce Equipment quoted me around 1300$ + freight and waived the core on a 3053a. I think I'm probably going to go with that. The Junkyard said they found one for 2400$, so screw that, haha. I'm going to give the wrecking yard a chance to pull a better price, otherwise I'm going to go with Boyce. I need this thing mobile.

thats another deuce from GL for the price of a tranny...

srodocker said:

thats another deuce from GL for the price of a tranny...

Click to expand...

Yeah and a craps shoot for the condition and model number =/ I thought about getting one from san antonio, none look particulary great.

Whew, ordered the transmission from Boyce, it got here today, and I just finished installing it and test drove it. It sounds a thousand times better than it ever did! I'm very pleased with it, it was a bit harder to install than uninstall, the clutch linkage was a little annoying, but my deuce is back on the road. Transmission has a 1 year warranty parts and labors, so that'll be a bit of piece of mind for a little while.

Here some pictures, a mixture of the old worn parts and the new transmission. I'm going to store the old one for a rainy day, every seal on it leaks, the upper assembly is trash, and the bottom end is full of needle bearings and metal.