I got the mainshaft all back together. New synchros, spring kits, *****, keys and bearings. Working on replacing the races today and checking the preload. I sure hope I don't have to shim it!!! I ended up having to order a ZF snap ring kit to the tune of 90 bucks because the clearances were all screwed with the original ones. Everything is perfect now on the mainshaft. I'm wondering if those out of spec springs and long end play on 1-2 is why it was always a bear to shift to second. I don't know. The synchro ring was worn but it still had teeth on it and the teeth on the sliding collar have minor rounding over on the edges but not enough to warrant replacing it. The springs were all about .020 too short though and the end play about .010 too long. Will that cause that synchro not to work right?

One thing I can say about this rebuild is it is REALLY nice doing it at home compared to the Ford dealers. I have an oven and a big deep freeze! Most of the special tools aren't needed with those two things.
One thing that ticked me off though was every manual I have on the zf 42 and every online manual I could find is WRONG when it's saying how to put the 1-2 sliding sleeve back on. It says to find those three flat teeth in it and locate those over the shallow cutouts on the synchro body. Well, the factory 1-2 sliding sleeve doesn't have the three flat teeth in it! All the other sliding sleeves do. That messed me up for two days researching it.

 

awesome man. got any pics? i did mine back around thanksgiving and she is still holding up great, shifts smoother than ever before! i had to buy that dang ring kit too and only used a couple of them. your synchro rings sound like mine, they were worn but still had teeth. i think it was still worth replacing them! i dont remember the three flat teeth and shallow cutout problem. not sure i ran into that.

-cutts-

 

You know what I'm talking about with those? They are on the inside of the sliding ring and it's just 3 ground down teeth that line up with the shallow slots on the synchro body?

I just got done sand blasting the outside of the case halves to get them clean. Zbart made a mess of it a long time ago! It's clean now. I also cleaned up the shift rails and looked the forks over good. I'm going to call and order three new shift forks. The 1-2 is pretty worn. That probably added to the problem with it.

I don't have anywhere to post pictures other than on facebook. I don't like those free places to post them.

 

picasa web buddy.

you can sync using picasa.

call me if you got some questions on setting it up.

 

you talkin about this?


agreed, thats where all my pics are and you can set permissions on them as well. easy to upload and share and they give you a pretty hefty size limit.

-cutts-

 

No, the part that goes over that and the shift fork rides on. It's got three places on the internal teeth where the teeth were ground down on purpose to make the ***** work easier. It's only supposed to go together with those ground down teeth lined up with the slots on the synchronizer body. There aren't any ground down teeth inside the 1-2 shift collar though. It's really weird.