Dang! They are tough. Long live old iron! I will reseal mine just in case something like that has befallen it or it leaks. Probably drive it the first 500 miles or so with regular 80w-90 I have laying about then change the oil and put in 75W-90 "Severe Gear" from Amsoil.

 

jdieselih------JUST my .02, but for your own sanity and peace of mind as long as it is on the ground replace(at least inspect them) the bearings too. Been there and done (just seals)that , like the old Fram oil filter add said---you can pay me now or pay me later. A bad bearing will make the brownie really really noisy not to mention jump out of gear. You can get the shaft preload set then also.
JUST A SUGGESTION...........................good luck to ya.

 

Hey thanks for the warning. Depends on the condition of the box I get I suppose but for the cost of it I would be well advised to do so. By the way, still on topic does anyone have the formulas to calculate each gear including the brownie box? I'm still trying to decide if I'm best off with a 5831/A or a B or if it doesn't matter too much. Main box is a T18 and the rear end is a Ford 10.25 with 3.55 R&P.

 

multiply the gear in the front box X the gear in the rear box X rear ratio = final drive ratio

 

Oh thanks! That isn't so hard. I was worried it might be a lot harder than that.

 

Maybe a stupid question, but which bearings generally wear to cause it to jump out of gear? Mine is jumping out of direct only, so I am trying to figure out if it is a bearing or the cover.

Thanks

 

Another make of OD to keep an eye out for was called the Hone Overdrive or Hone-O-Drive. They were available as a divorced mount or as a bolt on to the front of a Ford 9". It was a planetary design with a synchro about 30% over. I am adapting one to a '32 BB, which has a closed driveline so it is a bit challenging. Back in the 30's you could get an over/under called a Warford. And the Brownie was also used in the Model AA and BB trucks (1 and 1/2tons). As with most of these (other than GV units) you are sort of rolling the dice installing an obsolete auxiliary, hoping you never need to get parts for it. I know I'd have a heckuva time finding parts for my Hone, but I only have 50 horsepower in front of it, and in the 70s they were used in the big block Baldwin Motion Corvettes so I'm crossing my fingers. Just thought I'd post the names of some other dinosaur overdrives, seems there are others out there with pipe dreams of having lower engine rpms someday...

 

I love mine, except for the part of it popping out of gear!

 

From what I've been told seals and bearings, basically anything short of needing a transmission case, the Spicer/Brown Lipe is no problems getting parts for. I have located a couple in my area, I just need to get my butt out there to talk with the guy that has them. Sadly I just don't have the money to buy them right now. Not unless he wants to let them go real cheap. Sounds like he has linkages and shift towers too

 

I am working at rebuilding my 5831. I have run into a wall trying to get the main shafts out. Any hints on how to do that? I saw that the preload was mentioned above. What are the preload specs? How is the preload adjusted? Any help is appreciated. This is my first tranny rebuild, so any input is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

 

Perk,

I have not ever had one of these apart, but looking at the cross-section of it (see my photo gallery), it shows that the whole countershaft (cluster) gear is one solid shaft with one integral gear and the two larger gears installed on it. The inner races (cones) of the tapered roller bearings are pressed on the countershaft assembly. The outer races (cups) are a snug sliding fit in the case with bearing caps locating them axially. The shims are at the rear end of the case and changing shims changes the location of the rear bearing cup.

If you have the bearing caps removed and the rest of the gears out of the case, it looks like all you have to do is press or tap the cluster toward the rear of the trans and it will push out the rear cup. Then you should be able to remove the countershaft assembly. The only thing left to do would be to push out the front cup. This may take some "on the fly" tool or careful work with a flat-ended punch.

Be sure to keep the shim pack. If the bearings are worth re-using, you may need to take out a bit of shimming to compensate for wear. (By the way, do not mix the bearing cups if you are reusing them.) If you put in new bearings you will need to set them up with the shims (perhaps making some new ones) to get the pre-load correct. Sorry not to be able to give you a pre-load spec off the top of my head, but the most direct way to set it up is to add shims until you have a measurable end play. Then take out that amount of shimming and confirm that you have zero end plan; then take out shims equal to the desired pre-load.

Hopefully my limited statements will stimulate some additional posts.

 

perk40-basically what ach said. A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS. It has been a while since I tore(5531) mine down. I do recall that it was necessary to PULL (rear brg as I recall.) one of the bearings. The 2 input shaft brgs are tapered and can be preloaded. Pay attention to the spacer washer for the low gear and check the pocket bearing. The tranny is fairly straight forward and not complicated . Be sure and replace the 2 mainshaft seals. While the tranny is "down" you might as well check the countershaft(need a puller) bearings. The countershaft bearings are tapered(5531) and may need to be shimmed to get some pre load. If the countershaft bearings are caged (torrington)rollers just remove any slop-i think yours will be tapered bearings
Main drive gear end play should not exceed(as I recall?) .002 -same for the counter shaft.
Best bet would be go to the library and check out an OLD truck manual from the 40`s
-60`s). It is all a learning experience and good luck.

 

can the spicer 6041 be used as an OD as well as a splitter? i.e.: 1,1; 2,1; 3,1; 4,1; 5,1; 5,2; 5,3; 5,4? or any combo there-of? i assume you can. and what is involved in making this a divorced unit between ZF-5 and a divorced NP205? mostly i want to know if i would have to move the t-case. AND, how much do they run for price?

 

460/5,

Way back at the beginning of this thread I reminisced about the small Brown-Lipe auxiliary trans that my Dad had in his 1951 F-1. It was small -- appropriately sized to a light-duty pickup. The Spicer three-speed auxiliaries are a medium-duty transmission -- if you use one of them as a splitter, you are carrying at least a hundred pounds of extra cast iron around, and also have a lot more bulk to deal with.

The old two-speed, light-duty "Brownies" were designed to be installed as either an over-drive or an under-drive. My F-350 has a NP-540 five-speed with 4.56 rear gears. This gives me a great bottom gear and a top gear that will pul just about any grade with a ton of load on the deck. The previous owner worked this truck a lot for some 400,000 miles and insisted that he never felt the need for an over-drive or a splitter. I do feel the need for both and felt that a little Brownie would be perfect. It could have been installed in place of the carrier bearing and would not have affected ground clearance much.

Well, I gave up -- there do not seem to be any of the old Brown-Lipe two-speeds around any more, or at least none are for sale. I have really enjoyed following all the interest in this thread, but my own truck will soon have the five-speed replaced with a 10-speed "small" Roadranger. This will (with a rear-gear change to 3.54) give me a highway gear and still have the same low gear as before with ten evenly-spaced gears and one-stick shifting as well. At 425 pounds it will be heavy, but no heavier than the 5-speed and a three-speed Spicer auxiliary. I will have to make an adaptor to mate the Roadranger to my bell-housing, but I have the facilities to do this.

You can use the direct and over-drive gears of a three-speed as a splitter -- that is what it was made for. With a transfer case, you do not need the "grannie" gear, although there might be times when it would be useful. It will give you a double-grannie that is useful for things like rock-crawling, but it will also give you a broken axle or U-joint if you put too much torque through it. If the auxiliary is installed in front of the transfer case, it can be used in four-wheel drive, although that is not likely to be very important. In order to get reasonable length shafting, you will probably need to relocate the transfer case. This means fabricating four new drive shafts. If you put it in the rear drive shaft, you only need two new shafts, but can only shift the auxiliary out of direct in high range and even then, your speedometer will be incorrect when the auxiliary is not in direct.

Good luck . . .

 

You can split the gears in any way you want as long as you can match rpm's. The 6041 is a large aux trans, there will be drive line issues. There are a few for sale on line in the $1,200-$1,400 range.