Scott,
Two comments from personal experience:
1. Opt for an overdrive everytime. It makes a BIG difference.
2. Visual inspection is NOT good enough to tell anything except obvously
trashed gears.
When I purchased a used overdive transmission from Scott #1, we pulled the
side cover & it looked good. Sinse I do not like the idea of R&Ring
transmissions for an ongoing hobby, I had a transmission rebuilder disassemble
the box to check it out and reseal it.
He ended up replacing a gear on the lay shaft, two syncros and mentioned that
someone had previously disassembled the OD & put a part in backwards.
Not only would the OD not have worked, but the part would have come appart.
When I had the Land Rover engine rebuilt, I had someone go through the
transmission even though it was working just fine. There was a retaining
clip for second gear that was about 1/3rd missing!, the dog ears were badly
worn on (first or second), and there was a crack in the other (first or second)
gear tooth.
So first visual inspection will catch only the very bad boxes. Second unless
R&Ring transmissions is your idea of a fun summer afternoon, you really
want to have every part of a box inspected and measured by someone who
knows what they are doing.
Just my $0.02
TeriAnn
TR3 now with overdrive
MGBGT now with overdrive
Land Rover - thinking about getting an overdrive
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