Stock was probably a bronze bushing in the center of the flywheel.

 

What your non syncroed 3-speed is doing is absolutely NORMAL and the ONLY way to change that is to swap it out for a full syncro tranny. Tom

 

Hmmm, I really hope that the pilot bearing is still there, I don't remember removing it, so if it was there originally, than that is what is there now unless the machine shop replaced it when balancing or it wasn't there from the last person who worked on this truck, and god only knows when that was.

Damn, this has got me in a pickle.......again.

 

easy way to figger out if you have a pilot bearing..fire her up ...push in the clutch...and give her a short shot of gas..if it shakes or whines with the rev's...you have a problem ..because with the clutch pedal in the disk is floating and will vibrate ...a lot!!!the whine is the input shaft bearing loading up...no shake ,,your ok !!here is hopeing you didn't have to learn the same thing I did...

 

No whine or shake from what I can tell. :hopes:

 

Likely if you didn't remove the bearing it's still there and all is well. Would guess it's gonna be ok and just takes some getting use to driving stuff likely made long before you were born. Just enjoy driving your old truck and learning as you go is going to be fun. Look how far you have come since you first started working on it.
Larry

 

^Yeah no kidding. Thanks for the kind words.

I daily drive a little Honda, and the two times I've driven the truck(less than .2 of a mile each time), it feels like a big bus compared to my Honda......it almost makes me laugh, but I'm just going to have to get used to driving 50mph on the freeway(those 3.92's are going to kill that little 223) and taking turns no faster than 5-8 mph.

 

Hey, they rattle, shake, vibrate, and can drive ya nuts. They are not a Honda but then the Honda will never give you the feeling of excitement that old truck will. You'll get use to the truck and the way it drives, just take it slow and easy for a while and keep in mind it like your learning to drive all over again and just enjoy the experience. Nice to see you got some of the bugs out and are at least getting to drive it a tiny bit. Some on here have had their trucks for years and never gotten to take the first drive yet.
Larry

 

I'll be honest with you....I'm so nervous, I think I'm shaking, rattling, and making more funny noises than my truck is!

 

Hope I didn't make you too nervous! Sometimes the pilot bushing will stick to the input shaft which instead of slowing down when the clutch is pushed will continue to spin with the engine(but it will often cause 2-3 to grind as well) which yours does not.

 

I have been fixing and driving old cars for more than 55 years and still get a thrill the first time I get to drive one I have brought back to life. I hope the excitement never goes away.
Larry

 

4spd--Hahaha, no worries.


The first time I drove the truck, I had just parked it....it was missing so much I hardly made it back(timing was WAY off, etc....). I told this story when it happened already, but I'll tell it again.
So I decide to revv the motor just for the heck of it, it probably got to 22-2500rpm and then WHAM--CRASH---CRUNCH. Apparently a fan blade had a completely un-noticeable hairline crack in it and it gave out and flew off at 2xxxrpm. The home-made shroud saved my ***.


Scared the daylights out of me. I honestly thought I had thrown a rod....


It's freak stuff like that I'm nervous about(when I take it out for the first real test run).

Thanks for the wisdom, all.

 

Did you have the flywheel turned at a machine shop? If so, it's likely they removed the pilot to grind the surface and then put it back in when done. Although on a 223, the pilot may be stuck in the end of the crank, not in the flywheel.

BTW, I believe the correct spec oil is 90w, 75w90 may be on the thin side and let the gears keep spinning longer with the clutch in. I'm thinking of changing to 75w90 synthetic to see how it holds up. The 90wt gear oil I'm using is like tar in winter.

 

Eventually I ended up sending the whole motor for a complete rebuild....the whole shabang was done to the rotating assy, including a balance with the pressure plate, etc.

Once again, I'm basically riding on hope at this point.....with the way it runs, and the little test I performed from kenjh, (I know this is a bad method)I'm just hoping that everything is right and am going ahead with driving it and putting it on the road. I'm confident that everything is fine. Not absolutely sure, but confident.

 

You mentioned pulling the whole engine and trans earlier; you'd only have to pull the trans. Sometime when you have 4 or 5 hours, drop it out to give yourself the piece of mind!