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Re: TOW Bars

To: William Whitmoyer <wwhitmoyer@samsonite.net>
Subject: Re: TOW Bars
From: "Robert M. Lang" <lang@isis.mit.edu>
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2002 15:13:19 -0500 (EST)
Hi,

All you folks that advocate flat towing your TR Triumphs - would you
happen to be in the business of rebuiding Triumph gearboxes???

Just curious.

As Mark B. stated, if you flat tow the thing, you need to do something to
get the input shaft spinning while you tow to apply oil to the rest of the
gears. If you don't do this, the brass bushings will get pretty hot
(depending on how far you intend to tow the car) or they will fail.

I suppose you could try over filling the gearbox, but having had a few of
these puppies apart, I can't see the logic that allows you to conclude
that the gear oil can move around in the gearbox when the car is in
neutral... it just ain't so. And without the input shaft spinning stuff
around in there, the oil level is below the mainshaft centerline - hence
no oil to the bushings.

As stated in one reply "the layshaft gears always spin". This is correct
only if there is power applied to the input shaft. As a test, hold the
input shaft of your tranny, shift it into neutral. Try turning the
tailshaft. You feel some drag on the input shaft, but the tail spins
independently of the input shaft. This is because there is no mechanical
connection between the mainshaft gears and the layshaft. The drag you feel
is the bushings on the main shaft and the mainshaft spigot bearing. In
this case, there is nothing making the mainshaft gears spin - they're just
along for the ride.

regards,
rml
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