VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1912-1928 28 chev tranny

Need Help: If you start the car without depressing the clutch,you cannot get it into gear to drive. All it does is grind and will not engage into gear.If you start the car with the clutch depressed you have a good chance to shift gears. Second Question: Can you replace a clutch witout removing the Engine?The repair manual says you can drop the drive shaft and remove the Tranny?? thanks

First, the manual is quite clear on keeping the transmission in neutral, clutch engaged to start the engine. It says depressing the clutch can cause damage. i start mine like that and all is good. If you can't you have a problem.

second, i am in the middle of a clutch replacement on my 28 and yes you can do it from behind. Not the most fun repair i have ever done, but it is possible. right now I am waiting for the clutch to clear customs in Toronto. Here's hoping it will be back in by the weekend.

Question 1 - If you start the engine with transmission in neutral and clutch out then only the input shaft in the transmission should be rotating. Once you push in the clutch pedal the plate should release and the input shaft slow to a stop fairly quickly. If it continues to rotate and thus make shifting into a gear difficult then there is a problem with the clutch releasing. Could be one of several problems. Interference between clutch plate and flywheel bolts, too large clutch plate, ruff flywheel surface, improper adjustment, etc.

What happens when you start the engine with the clutch depressed and transmission in gear. If there any noise? Movement? Can you then shift between gears without gear grinding?

I have removed the transmission a couple of times. If I remember correctly you break the universal joint and then place a jack under the nose of the tailshaft and push it up as high as you can. The transmission will then come back and can be moved sideways and brought up through the floor.Ultimately, if I remember, the brake cross rods stop the tailshaft dropping and clearing and also stop the transmission being removed from below.It is a job best done with two people.

I dropped mine from below, but had to unbolt the rear end and move it back in order to gain clearance.

I have been thinking about the clutch. Some time ago I put a new driven plate in to my "28" and the clutch wouldn't disengage properly. We removed it and found that the new one was thicker than the original, partly because it was new and perhaps it was a bit thicker than the original when it was new. We noted that where the fingers (pressure levers) in the pressure plate press down on to the pressure lever plates, those plates were heavily worn. My friends took the pressure plate away and were going to flip the pressure lever plates over so as to present an unworn surface.I seem to think that ultimately they actually made up new plates that were stepped up a little to get closer to the fingers.Anyway what you need to check for wear in all those components otherwise there will be too much slack to take up before it all starts to work.

Chipper: Thanks for responding. I have started the engine with the clutch depressed and I don't have any movement or noise. The shifting can be done easily from 1st to reverse but from 1st to 2nd there is considerable grinding. thanks trooper

I had that problem with my 23 Olds truck. Putting in 600 wt helped slightly, but it still did it. I read the manual and it said if the clutch acted up, flush out the housing with kerosene run for 10 min and let it drain out over night. I did that and now the clutch works like a new one and it is the original cluch! I think what happened is some old gummy gear oil got on the splines and was letting the disk drag the flywheel slightly. I ran that truck in a antique car hill climb (very steep hill!) a few days later in high gear all the way up and it didn't slip a bit and would idle and go into gear just like it should. I should add that it has the woven asbestos so you might want to use something like brake cleaner if you have the composite type disk.

on my 30 i pulled the trans without moving the rear end. i pulled the u joint apart. then
i used a floor jack under the rear. jacked up to get the rear wheels off the ground. remove the rear wheels. and put jack stands under the rear frame. i had to go up very high on the jack stands. once you let the floor jack down. the tube will go up as the rear springs relax. then the trans can come out from the bottom. i removed the front seats and the first two floor boards too.

Let me clarify why I had to disconnect the rear end. i am using a scissor hoist and when i tried to jack up the rear end while on the hoist, i ended up lifting the whole car off the hoist, with the full rear weight on the jack. needless to say this was dangerous, so an alternate plan had to be put into place. If you can get enough clearance without moving the diff, then go for it. It's not complicated, but it is a major pain and effort to do it.

hey shawng
i understand. my buddy had a drive up lift in his garage and i tried to pull trans on his lift. i had the same problem. now i had half the car apart. i had to push the car out in his driveway and finish pulling my trans on the ground using a floor jack and jack stands. my manual only said to move tube out of the way to clear trans. once i had the trans out. i put the rear wheels back on and pushed it back on to my buddy lift where it lived for a few weeks while i rebuilt the trans and clutch. i couldn`t thank my friend enough for leting my car live in his garage while i worked on my trans.

Ya, the manual is a work of art. "just move it out of the way" Did the author ever notice it is a solid post over 4 feet long? My other big beef is that cross-member they don't mention or even display. Oh well, I have taken worse apart without a manual, so this is nothing new. At least this forum is here to save us.

Hi Bob Kerr: Sorry for the delay. Thanks for your response,I am not sure where you added the kerosene? Was it down the timer hole. Appreciate any help you can give. thanks trooper

I know it worked for Bob, but the whole idea of using kerosene is kinda sketchy to me. If you pour some in the timing hole, it might find its way over the ring gear and down the front of the pressure plate, or you spray it in the hole where the clutch fork goes, you might have better luck of it getting past the pressure plate and onto the clutch, but I am wondering how much will get to engine side of the clutch. The disk is buried in there as in countersunk into the flywheel. And then you have the mess of leaking kerosene and grease and other crap to deal with. Back in the day where they poured anything on the ground and didn't know better that was OK, but today, you will have to contain the mess or else...

If you really want to do it, I would use spray brake clean and attempt to direct the spray with the provided straw. Containment and cleanup would be the same.