Restoring Rusty

[dragonball98312]

Is the saginaw a temporary replacement for the a833 to get rebuilt or a replacement? Did you not like the a833 if so? I have one that im looking forward to installing, someday lol. Curious which you prefer

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by dragonball98312

Is the saginaw a temporary replacement for the a833 to get rebuilt or a replacement? Did you not like the a833 if so? I have one that im looking forward to installing, someday lol. Curious which you prefer

that is a very good question, I had multiple thoughts cross my mind, I like to experiment so I wanted to try all or some of the 60's 4 speeds, like the Muncie, but it proved to be too expensive at the moment, as hot rodding is in vogue and prices have run away from us OGs, lol, so I found this Saginaw for like $200 with linkage (couldn't pass it up) so I thought throw in the Saginaw, drive it, and yes take your time rebuilding the 833

but then guess what the new girl agrees with me more as far as the gearing is concerned, I found myself leaving the 833 in third more and more as of late ie 1:1 drive to put my new cam and heads in their power band, most "performance" cams start at 2,500 RPM and go up to like 5,500 plus RPM, don't get me wrong on the freeway 4th gear ie the Over Drive on that 833 is amaze balls, but how often do I go camping, and drive 90 miles on the freeway, not often, most of the time its city driving or short bursts on the freeway

so the 833 is a good transmission give it a go, but the Saginaw is greatly underestimated especially with "hear say" on the Internets of how weak it is (um ironically iron case not aluminum, which is good, duh the 833 guys upgrade from aluminum to iron when they want to beef theirs up) and not all Saginaws were created equal, look above at the notches on the input shaft thread, they came with like four or five different gear combos, I think the zero notches on the input shaft is the strongest transmission so that's what I luckily ended up with. They even came with an OD option I hear.

either box is way better than the SM465 granny low gear that came with our trucks, I know some off roader 4x4 guys will argue with me, but if you like to drive off of the farm every once in a while and off of the dirt roads (ha ha) whilst towing a flat trailer full of hay stacks, and instead you like pavement under your tires, the Saginaw or the 833 are the way to go, unless of course you can land a Muncie or a TKO 5 speed, ha ha

oh and if and when I do go back to the 833 I am also dorppin' in the stock hydraulic clutch bell housing and hydraulic clutch off of our mid 80s GM trucks cause I absolutely can't stand the Mickey Mouse Z bar setup, it's problematic and yes I rebuilt it and have it adjusted properly

good luck, g

[LT7A]

Wow man, way to get after it! To be honest though, I really enjoy your rebuilds and write-ups so I dumped a little Smooth-B-Gon in that Saginaw case. Heh heh.

Do you think that what you're experiencing at this point is just tolerances that have opened up due to use and age?

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by LT7A

Wow man, way to get after it! To be honest though, I really enjoy your rebuilds and write-ups so I dumped a little Smooth-B-Gon in that Saginaw case. Heh heh.

ha ha, that was you?

Originally Posted by LT7A

Do you think that what you're experiencing at this point is just tolerances that have opened up due to use and age?

Bro you always ask the right questions. Yeah I think so, I called Allstate Gear, the place where I got my rebuild kit to ask their Tech Support for some advice and without hesitation the guy recommended I call Jon Bergeron at Kajun Enterprises in Texas, which I did and Jon said he hasn't worked on a Saginaw in a while and was trying to get out of that business, he really did not have VooDoo advice for me as I was hoping. So then I called Mike at Transmission Warehouse literally walking distance from my house who said sometimes they cut off the sprocket off of one of the gears, it was over the phone and I think he said 4th gear but he may have been thinking something else, which got me thinking so I did some Web sole searching...

[Gregski]

I hope this is the last post on this topic for a while as I think we are all tired of me beating this horse to death, but check this out

I came across this wonderful blog from a gentlemen who bought his step fathers 1967 Camaro which came with a Saginaw 4 speed L30/M20 1967 Camaro

Now he calls it the "M20" which I could have sworn was a Muncie designation where as the Saginaws were the M26 & M27 but anyways, check out the pictures of his internals compared to those of mine

[Gregski]

His 1st-Reverse-2nd Gear Slider (second gear looking thing in the top row from the right, out of the 5 gear things there) does not have the sprocket (on the left side of the straight cut gear) like mine does, this part appears to be a Muncie part

his pic on top

mine on the bottom

[Gregski]

Also his has a much narrower idle gear, the straight cut gear all by itself on the bottom slider, see how mine in the second pic is much much wider than that, it's almost twice the width, was this a clever workaround to prevent the gears from rubbing against it's adjacent gears causing the rattling noise I have been fighting

[Gregski]

also if you watch the following teaser YouTube video on how to rebuild the Saginaw 4 speed, and pause it at 23 seconds in you will see the same skinny style reverse and idle gear setup

Saginaw 4-Speed Rebuild - by teachmecars.com

[Gregski]

Truck doing truck things...

[Gregski]

rear window sliders are not just for making rattling and squeaking noises, they convert your short bed to a long bed in a snap

[Gregski]

tired of trippin' on things on your garage floor? - Go Vertical!

[Gregski]

this is a 10x10 tough? shed, inside it... 100 Luxurious square feet of square body parts... and among them... our next project!

[Gregski]

setting up the staging area, these Mexican Home Depot saw horses would be fabulous if I was 4' 8" ha ha

[Gregski]

and the patient is on the table, in order to keep the scratchability down to a minimum we are going to work on it's belly first

for those of you keeping meticulous notes, this hood came with the step side bed from the same donor truck

[Gregski]

let's cover some basic hood anatomy in the unlikely event we'll want to put some of these bits back on later

[Gregski]

and just like my Facebook Status, this quick hood respray just got: Complicated!

[Gregski]

i honestly have zero faith in this product, but while we contemplate what to do with that bad rusty spot on the hood, we'll give it another go

[hatzie]

You can probably liberate that section from your other hood. I see welding in your future...

[Gregski]

well dingle dangle, it worked, you can even see the blue color on some of those hood hinge bolts, wow

note to self: fish out that missin' 4th bolt

[Gregski]

so decided to brush up my welding skills a bit before cutting into that bad section of the hood, so it was time to patch the hole in the trans tunnel

[Gregski]

tac, tac, slowly but surely it's getting there, I like it, keeping the burn through to a minimum, then some grinder action and no one will even know how ugly this stitching was

[RDrancher]

C'mon...it's been like 33 minutes. Pics! Pics! Mmmmmm popcorn.

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by RDrancher

C'mon...it's been like 33 minutes. Pics! Pics! Mmmmmm popcorn.

ha ha, Millenials?! jk

[RDrancher]

Originally Posted by Gregski

ha ha, Millenials?! jk

Ha! I think I get bored faster than my grandkids. Look...........squirrel!

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by RDrancher

C'mon...it's been like 33 minutes. Pics! Pics! Mmmmmm popcorn.

alright here you go, something to hold you over... filled in the welds