2/25/07
Transmission Mount Shims

I’ve been trying my best to sneak away into my garage to get a couple of hours of work done on the Ferrari. Work often stops when I get to a problem that requires a run into town for parts, and this time it was to buy some 1/8 inch aluminum to fabricate into a spacer. I looked in my scrap pile and didn’t find anything that would work, but I found what I needed at the local Tractor Supply Company. It’s my new favorite store because they’re like a Home Depot for farmers, and I can wander the isles for hours looking at trailer hitches and feed toughs. It’s fun living out in the sticks!

After some work with a hacksaw and a file, I made the shims I needed to match the original transmission mount thickness. An 1/8 inch difference may not seem like a lot, but at the end of the transmission, the drive shaft and pinion angle could change if I left them out.

The next step was to install all the cotter pins in the drive shaft bolts. I followed François’ method of bending the cotter pins taught to him from the factory. After doing these a second time, and working on that GTC suspension last Fall, I’m finally getting the hang of it. It’s taking half the time to get these cotter pins to look right than when I first started doing it!

My transmission has two compartments for gear oil because the overdrive unit is separate from the main transmission housing. It’s recommended that I use 30 WT non detergent motor oil for the British overdrive unit. Although it does not state this in the Ferrari owner’s manual, all the British manuals specify this lighter oil. The lighter 30 weight oil allows the Laycock overdrive unit to shift as it was intended, and the ND (non detergent) specification keeps the oil from foaming up in the gearbox when the gears are splashing around. The guy who rebuilt my overdrive told me that whenever he gets a call from an owner with an overdrive shifting issue, the problem can often be solved by using the right oil.

With the overdrive sorted with the right oil it was time to turn my attention to the Ferrari made section of the gearbox. I’ve been hearing a lot of good things about synthetic gear oils. They are very durable, and are formulated to give just the right amount of friction necessary for the synchronizers to work in a manual transmission. François has used Red Line Gear Oil in some of his customer’s cars with good results and I wanted to give this stuff a try.

Unfortunately, none of the three auto parts stores in my area carried Red Line, and some of them hadn’t even heard of it! I had to resort to mail order, but my first choice,  Summit Racing, didn’t carry it, so I went to the Jeg’s website. After filling out the order form, I was informed that my address was not a valid delivery address!?! I may live in the country, but United Parcel Service has never had a problem finding me! I finally found my oil at Racer Parts Wholesaler, and it should be arriving by the end of the week, so I’m stopped on the Ferrari again!

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