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I am rebuilding another 3 speed remote control transmission. The case is in good shape but it does have some corrosion and old paint that needs to be removed. I am steering away from the blasting cabinet with glass beads, and leaning towards soda blasting it with my soda pressure blaster. After I finish I planned on running it through the dishwasher (after my wife heads into town tomorrow 😬. Anybody have any other ideas that could work?
Bold move Jonathan, putting the transmission case in the dishwasher. I don't know how long the trip to town your wife is making, but if she catches wind of this, it might include seeing a divorce lawyer and picking out a new dishwasher.
Back in 2013 I put paint stripper on mine, hosed it off outside then carried it in and did the final scrub and rinse in the bathtub, with some parts in the kitchen sink. Caught holy hell for that!!
Good luck, hope your last living post won't be recorded as yesterday.
Tom
Most transmission shops have a specialized pressure blasting cabinet for just this purpose...it may be worth a call or two to see if you have a local shop who would clean your housing for you. Your wife might even offer to pay for it if she knows that it would mean keeping truck parts out of her kitchen.
Many of the Self Serve Car wash's have heated spray wash . I've cleaned many a engine compartment with some Gunk at the car wash in this manner. Sure would save a heated Discussion with the significant other if the dish washer episode were to be exposed. Even a good degreaser and a pressure washer will clean effective enough for painting.
I like the heated pressure washer at the car wash thing, never thought of that for car parts. I'ver used soda blasting to strip cast iron engine blocks, but you still have to hose it down to clean all the media off. And you have to do it outside if the part is too large for the cabinet. The only good thing about that type of media is it coats the metal with a film which actually deters rust until you hose it off, so you have some time to work with the piece. I would NOT put it in a dishwasher.
I took a pass on the dishwasher, even though it would be clean I do not want to do anything that might harm the kids. I will keep degreasing it and may soak it in vinegar to remove any flash rust.
Most transmission shops have a high pressure cabinet trans cleaner, as CharlieLed suggested. I used to restore antique slot machines, and used those transmission cleaners to degrease the slots. They came out so clean you could eat off them.. Around $30.00 charge at most shops. https://www.bendpak.com/shop-equipme...shers/rs-750d/
The transmission cleaned up well with citrus desolv. I soda blasted the case and rinsed it in a hot water bath and dried it with compressed air. Glad I did that because I found what I believe is a hairline crack in the bottom of the case where the idler gear support is. The dark spot cleaned off with lacquer thinner but it makes me think gear oil seeped into the crack. I guess I need to have it magnafluxed to be sure. Any test I can do at home to determine if it’s cracked?
That does not look like an area where a crack would form, IMO. It does however, look like an area that has a problem. Ford and other manufacturers had casting porosity problems around this time period. The porosity problem is the reasons you see so many of these old castings coated with red oxide paint. Some castings had this coating inside and outside. Ford tractor castings and some nine inch Ford rear end castings come to mind right now. Some light duty transmission cases got the red oxide treatment as well. A friend who was a Ford Tractor factory field rep back in the 1950s relayed this information to me.
Edit: Gasoline would seep thru any defect in the casting rather quickly.
The inside of the case has been painted red, I am assuming with glyptal. It’s almost like a casting flaw both on the inside and outside. The only thing that worries me about it was that it’s where the idler support is. Makes me think either a fatigue crack or a loading crack due to a chipped tooth etc? You would think though that the support would have cracked around the idler shaft hole and not the case if it was a metal fragment strain. I have glytal paint, should I paint it and run it? The case is in great condition otherwise.
. Anybody have any other ideas that could work?
