VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1929-1932 U-joint housing lube level

I replaced my drive shaft bushing and noticed that my u-joint housing is missing what must be a fluid level check plug.

Is that what the hole directly behind the speedometer cable is????

I plugged this hole and filled the u-joint housing with 8 oz of gear lube.

As usual I could not find anything in the owners manual or the repair manual.

Thanks, Larry.

The plug that is opposite the speedometer cable is a support bush for the speedometer driven gear.

speedometer gear link

Also, use 4 ounces of gear lube instead of 8 ounces.

It will seek its level as it automaticly also fills from the transmission. If too much it will flow to the tranny and too little the trany gear oil will flow to the U joint......may take a 1/2 hour of driving to do so.

Thanks Jack. I believe the plug you are talking about is across or opposite the speedometer drive.

My missing plug is about 1" to the rear of the speedometer cable and is on the driver side as well.

I just had a look at three 1930 to 1932 gearboxes and I could only find a fill plug up on the top of the universal joint housing, nothing behind the speedometer cable fittings. has someone drilled and tapped another hole??

I had thought about doing that on my 32 as I am having leakage from the torque tube connection. However I believe it's caused from having a sealed bearing in the rear and with the correct bearing the oil will return or be supplied from the transmission. It should only require an initial filling and checking the level in the main gearbox should be all that is necessary.

Confusing description 6840, can you clarify which bearing etc and where leak is occuring, i.e. bolt on connection gasket, around T-Tube sleeve, etc? Why would adding a drain plug help solve a leak? Puzzled in Nova Scotia!

The leak is from the universal joint ball packing. The bearing is the rear output bearing which I believe is mounted in the front of the u-joint housing attached to the rear of the freewheeling unit on the 32. Without freewheeling it would be the output bearing for the mainshaft. I believe the question was about adding a level check plug and not a drain plug to the u-joint housing. I may be mistaken, but then that is what the title says. Chev Nuts post above describes the oil flow-with a sealed bearing that flow is interrupted in either direction.

63_SWC: What year is your car???

Dog, my car that I was asking about is a 1930. I also have another 1930 that I looked at this afternoon an low and behold it does not have that hole or plug.

I have a repo Chevrolet repair manual effective on and after March 1st, 1930 and on page 76 Fig. 86 it shows the plug.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks, Larry.

The artists rendering on page 76 of the March edition of the 1930 repair manual shows that the plug is in the exact same location as the speedometer driven gear.

I checked my car and my other 1930 transmissions and none of them have a hole or a plug directly behind the speedometer driven gear. As a matter of fact, on my car and on my other transmissions, there is not enough room between the speedometer driven gear and the end of the U joint retainer housing for a plug the size of the one featured in the illustration.

Yes, I see that now. I'm going to be out of town for a few days but I might look into this a little further just for fun when I get back.

I noticed the trans has a couple of numbers on the top that you might be able to tell me what it is.

The hole is tapped 3/8 course thread so I just plugged it.

Larry

Someone in the past may have drilled and tapped the hole to be used as a drain.

The only thing is the hole is at the 9:00 position if you will. Directly in back of the speedometer cable.

Next week I will take a pic of my '30 with the hole and my '30 without the hole.

Larry.

Well Dog I went to the shop today and forgot to take my camera.Yes I still use a camera not a phone.

Anyway I got to looking around and found there are actually 2 holes. The second one was filled with 50 year old dirt.

So the 1st hole is directly in line and behind the speedometer cable by about 2". The 2nd hole is about 2" directly above the 1st hole. Both are tapped 3/8 coarse.

I'm sure they were not added by someone as the surface where they are is machined just like the mounting area for the speedometer cable.

It looks like this is not a 1930 u-joint housing and the holes were there to mount something.

Will proceed with picture tomorrow.

Larry.

Sounds like you have something weird there. Photos will definitely help.

1st time posting a pic so be easy on me.
These are the 2 holes I was speaking of.
However they are NOT drilled thru to the u-joint as I thought. Don't know how I got that wrong.
You can see the upper one has another side hole drilled into the main hole.
I plugged them just to keep the dirt out.
Number BD48186 is stamped on the top of the transmission at the rear of the gearshift plate.

The photo sure helped a lot! Anyway, I checked the transmissions that I have again, and all of them except for one do not have the holes featured in your photo. As a matter of fact, the U joint retainers are too short to have room for the two extra holes. However, I do have one transmission in my boneyard that has the U joint retainer with the two holes, and it is a lot longer than the retainer without the holes.

I have no idea what was intended to go into the two holes.

As the surfaces around both holes appear to be machined, maybe there for a mounting bracket ??? Don't know what for though!

I was just thinking the same thing that a bracket for the brake system bolts there.

Possibly, but if the bracket was for the brake system you would think that all of the U joint ball retainers would be set up for the bracket. And, the schematic of the brake system does not show a bracket at that location for US cars.

According to the parts book the U joint ball retainer is the same from 1929 thru 1931.

Dog, the depth of the different housings may be a bit of an illusion. I too thought the one with the holes was a fair amount longer.

I put a tape to the 2 I have and they both are around 2 7/8" in length plus or minus an 1/8".

When you can maybe throw a tape on yours with the holes.

Thank you, Larry.

Any chance those tapped holes were for a same-year truck's pedal assembly? My '36 truck's transmission case has 3 tapped holes on the left side for that purpose, and for my truck, the master cylinder is located on the same pedal assembly's frame. In 1936 the car and truck cases were different--the car trans has no such tapped holes on the left side--just on the right side for the hand brake.

Just a S.W.A.G.!

For 1929-31 the trucks did use a different U joint ball retainer and a 3/8" bolt is listed for the truck retainer but not the car retainer. However, the pedal assembly is located on the pedal shaft that is on the side of the transmission support and not on the side of the retainer for both the cars and the trucks.

Tomorrow I will measure the overall length of the two types of U joint ball retainers.

The mystery continues.