3/4/03
Alpine Transmission II

Continuing on the Alpine transmission, I ordered some u-joints from Classic Sunbeam, along with the front and rear seals, but first, I had to clean up the grungy drive shaft, and press out the old u-joints.

The old u-joints came out without too much of a fight. The grease fittings were not installed, which gave the previous owner even more of an excuse not to grease them, and boy, were they dry! Needless to say, they were shot, showing lots of play. The next step was to get these two yokes degreased and sand blasted for fresh paint.

Here’s a word of advice, thoroughly degrease the parts before trying to sandblast. Sand tends to bounce off grease gobules, so making sure all the grease is removed from the part saves you time from having to scrape the part again, so the sand can do its job.

It turns out that this plate will not come out without disassembling the whole transmission, so I popped out the seal from the front. I pierced the seal with a sharp awl, and pried it out. The rear seal at the tail shaft came out in a similar fashion, only with a lot more mangling and swearing at the seal.

By the end of the day, I had reassembled the transmission, sealed all the components with a thin layer of silicone sealer. The shifter operated fairly well, but I’ll compare it to the one currently on the car to see which one is better before I install it permanently on this transmission. My memory tells me the one on my car is pretty smooth, and may be better than the action on this one. Well see.

The next step is to work on the wiring of the overdrive, and get this puppy in!

Here are some of last week’s correct answers to the inaugural Mystery Vintage Ferrari Part!

“The part you note is the supporto registro cavo and without it your throttle tension and location will be far off the mark. They are normally painted straight black or crinkle finish in black or TR red.” JW

Tom, it looks like the stand for the accelerator wire on the series II cars. You can see it circled in the picture I’ve attached.  It’s removed in the picture, but normally stands upright on three studs on the left cam cover near the rear carb. KC

My first reaction, without looking any of my stuff,  is that it looks like the bracket that captures the engine-end of the throttle cable.  It bolts onto the top of the cam cover. DB

Heh, too easy, its a Supporto per Registro, part number 19626.  Supports the engine end of the throttle cable. JB

Here’s this week’s:

I think giving all the information you can on these parts is a good exercise for detailing your car, and thanks to all that responded! When I get enough of these, I’ll create new section with an archive. Submissions for mystery parts are also welcome!

E-mail me with your answer here.

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