Can someone please look at the picture on page 1 lower right fig 3 and tell me if the shift motor is grounded itself to the axle housing.

I finally have all of my parts to finish this two speed deal today, well all the parts I am going to be able to find at this point anyway. I am missing unfortunately the speedometer adapter and the circuit breaker but the speedometer adapter is not going to do me much good anyway I am assuming because I do not have the original trans in this thing and I can get the circuit breaker anywhere I suppose if it really is necessary.

I have the switch which accepts 3 wires, two of the wires are black and red, these go to the rear axle shift motor, clear on how all of that goes, I also have a green wire that is my incoming power for the switch motor which I will get from my ignition cylinder but originally on the original harness and as can be seen in these pics there is a black wire that is tied into the black wire that runs to the shift motor and starts at the speedometer adapter which again I do not have.

So If I disregard/ dont put a black wire into my homemade shifting wiring harness than how is all of this going to be grounded?

It looks like on the diagram that the shifter motor itself is grounded and yet the two electrical connections going into the rear of it are insulated from the housing by rubber washers ect.

My guess at this point is that the sealed self contained 12 volt ( updated already to 12 volt motor ) is grounded itself to the shift motor casing when its all screwed together but I do not want any screw-ups so I turn too the experts and ask.

 

It looks like everything is grounded via the speedometer adapter that you apparently don't have.

The "upside-down triangle made of horizontal lines" symbol means "to ground."

 

Chris, 1930dodge, the black wire was to change the speedometer adapter, it is spliced to the black wire from the switch. The shift motor is grounded through the axle (see the upside-down triangle). We have a similar setup at our scout camp on an IHC truck.

 

Ah, yes, it is, I didn't see that one.

 

Thanks very much, since you have one of these please answer this if you can, I guess that I am not going to run that second black wire, in other words no reason to splice on in if I have no speedometer deal.

( Speedometer is going to read off a bit anyway because the gear on the cable is in no way matched to my truck tire size, gear ratio ect, I have already run it this way and believe it or not its not that far off, maybe 5 or 7 miles per hour and although I have never had in operation the 2 speed in this truck I am not really caring how much further its going to be off because my driving will always be in the high range anyway.

I am going to look for the couple of parts I am lacking and put them on eventually though just to say it all works the way it should. )

Anyway my question is, I have no idea whatsoever what the rear end is stuck in now, I am assuming high, when I was driving it a while back I would of had to say it sure was not in low.

I am concerned that when I put power to the green wire though its going to shift it ( or try ) to wherever the button happens to be and again will that correspond with whats in the rear end.

I hope you get my meaning, any suggestions? Thanks

 

I figured ( ok was sure ) that was a ground symbol and that I would be ok but I am not confident with electric and just like to verify every move I make.....dont worry guys, its almost over thanks again though

 

double post.

 

If it were me, I would not rely on the ground on the axle housing. I remember on my old 53 they actually had brass bushings for the leaf springs, that actually had grease fittings on them. I am guessing this would give you a good enough ground, but I still would not rely on that as being a good electrical connection. It would be like relying on the ball hitch on the trailer for a ground, I think we all have seen this at one time or another, someone's trailer going down the road with the lights blinking over every bump.

I would scrape away the rust, paint, etc, and find a mounting bolt or screw for the shift motor, and install a ground wire under this fastener with a crimp-on ring of some sort(with your heat shrink would be good) and run a ground wire with the shift motor wires over to the frame. You could keep going with this ground wire up the frame, and ground it to the same point that you ran the ground for the fuel tank sending unit. And somewhere up front you should have a small wire coming off the battery negative, and it will run to the frame to ground it. You should also have a small ground wire bolted to one of the bellhousing bolts, and running up and bolted to the firewall sheetmetal somewhere to ground the sheetmetal of the cab.

I do not know why you are worried about the motor shifting to another gear. If it shifts, just shift it back. It's interesting that this old motor works the same way to this day on the newer 2 speed rearends in dump trucks with the very large Eaton rearends. I just worked on one of these a couple of years ago. I don't know if you have ever worked one of these, but what you do is switch the motor BEFORE you push in on the clutch or let off the gas pedal. The motor will wind itself up compressing one of the springs inside, but will not shift the rearend because there is too much side load on the gears. Once you shift the motor and give it a few seconds to wind up, all you have to do is let up on the gas pedal to take the load off the gears and the spring will shift the gear right into place. Going from low to high is really simple and easy on the fly, going from high to low, you usually have to let up on the gas, and then pat the gas to rev the engine a little bit so the gear speeds will match and let it go in without grinding.

 

Good point on the ground of the 2 spd motor, will take care of that, I dont have a ground on the bellhousing but I do have one going from engine to frame and from frame to Alt and of course the neg. battery term to frame.

I know next to nothing about these two speeds but I am quite familiar with how this electric shift motor internals work, I was concerned that it would not be good for the motor if it were to try and shift whilst just sitting in my driveway not moving.

Thanks for the tips on operation, I do have the original instruction plate No idea where it was originally mounted, any clues? Id like to put it back there wherever there is!

 

The IHC had the switch on the shifter and the label with the instructions on the dash. If you rotate the pinion when you connect things and try it you shouldn't have a problem. I can remember shifting it up or down for the best gear choice running around camp at the 15 mph speed limit. Once we got on the paved roads it usually stayed in high.

 

I think you have answered my question than on where the plate originally went, there is a large enough area at the top of the dash where the fire company mounted a bunch of toggle switches, I bet they removed the data plate themselves.

I think I will put it back there, I cant find use for all those toggle switches anyway and I like the idea of that pate being there. Thanks alot