ZF6 -650 rebuild and other things I've done on my early 99 7.3 F350

[Dave_Nevada]

Okay gang, to get my truck going after my oversight of the blasted clutch switch situation, I went ahead and wired 1 & 2 together and 3 & 4 on the clutch switch harness.

I will fabricate a switch mount much like the old cars had for a brake light switch to operate the break circuit for the cruise control.

The truck starts just fine with the clutch switch portion hard wired together (which is what I want).

I think I'll rename the so called 'clutch safety switch' the clutch MORON switch.

Anyway, that's all I had left to do to road test the ZF6 after the lengthy rebuild.

I have to tell you, she shifts smooooooth as duck butter, and the pedal tree mods work fabulously!!! It's never felt that nice! No noises, clutch engages smoothly, perfect.

HIGH RECOMMENDED!! :thumbsup:

This has been one heck of a long ordeal, and I have learned a crap ton of stuff about this transmission. Anyone that needs information about a rebuild, let me know. It's taxing to say the least.

It didn't kick my arse, but we did go 'round and 'round a few times. Sort of like wrestling a pig in mud. Sooner or later you'll realize the pig likes it. :naughty:

 

[Dave_Nevada]

Gear Porn

For those of you that enjoy the finer things of life, I give you raw naked German gears!

Look at those! Wow. Now those are some biggins!!!

Bet she's smooth as silk, groans under load and happy rolling in lube!

Ja frauline! Das ist gut!

:thumbsup:

 

[Dave_Nevada]

She's clean

Clean enough to eat off her good German belly. Even Herr Willy Messerschmitt would be proud!

 

[ja_cain]

Hi Justin,

2841- Ground Radio Repairman.
SGT
1975-1980
Nothing special, just a typical Jarhead, I have a PHD (Piled Higher and Deeper) in BS, can spread horse-hockey like a tracked farm implement, I didn't kill anyone, can't fly faster than the speed of sound, nor can I leap over fat broads in a single bound. ointlaugh:

I had fun, was miserable, bored out of my mind, scared out of my wits- you know the drill.

How about you?

SF,

Dave

Photos are of my M35A2 (a real Diesel truck) that I promptly hand painted with a roller and brush (just like the in the field) a nice Marine Corps green #23, and stenciled 11th MT BN logos in the appropriate places. I never understood a camo paint job on a beast this size, it's like hiding a wart on the end of your nose with makeup. Absolutely EVERYONE knows it's there.:naughty:

Good stuff Dave! I would love to have an M35A2. Yours looks sweet!

2841/2843 - I had to stay another month in 29 Stumps for PLRS training. Lol! Ironically I probably should have just gone in as a 3521, since I mostly just turned wrenches when I was deployed. Also got out a SGT. Got promoted at my 4 year mark while in a field op in Shivta, Israel. Best promotion ceremony ever!

I got as close as I ever wanted to be to some action when we hit the beach in Greece and they issued us ammo. I was on the boarder of the Kosovo/Serbian boarder on the anniversary of the invasion as a speed bump if they decided to come across. That was when I was deployed with the 24th MEU. I'll never share the same kind of bond that I shared with those guys on that deployment. We were tight!

Here is another pic of me doing lord knows what on a hummer. Lol!

Thanks for sharing, your service and contributing such an awesome and insightful thread! This place needs more of this.

Justin

Btw, I want to be as bad azz as you and Andy when I grow up.


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[ja_cain]

Sorry, I didn't mean to post that pic here. Thought I was in the other thread. Too early in the morning to think. Lol!

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[rusty1161]

Cool pic.

Thank you all for your service.

Rusty

 

[Dave_Nevada]

Countershaft Bearing pain in the 6

Okay folks, I have to warn you, this one bearing is a MEGA PAIN-IN-THE-ARSE to remove. Using a slide hammer puller is a joke. It simply will not budge, not even with heat.

I ended up making a puller tool that lifts upward on the inside of the bearing race lip (roller pins removed from bearing race) while a steel 3” ring was used to push against the case to apply (extracting) pressure. The tool was shaped similar to a slipper fit axle race puller (T shaped shaft, oval shoe). I made the ‘shoe’ .100” larger the the bearing diameter lip so I could insert it at an angle into the bearing cup. I welded a 3/4” threaded shaft with a nut to the shoe. I got the shoe cherry red hot with a torch and quenched it in brine to harden it.

I used a piece of 1/2” thick steel bar with a hole drilled in it for the bridge. I fitted the 3/4” threaded rod and shoe into the bearing race, placed the 3” steel ring over the bearing race, mounted the steel bridge over the steel ring and installed a ¾ drive nut. I turned the nut until I had a firm mounting on the shoe and bearing race, then I began extracting the race, turning the nut clockwise until the race slowly came out.

BTW- the push ring was a cutoff piece of steel tube from an old 9” Ford axle tube housing project.

Worked perfect.

That all seemed like a lot to get that blasted thing out of there, and let me assure you. IT WAS.

In the future, if it were me, I’d get a tool that is more suited to pull this bearing. I was being a cheap ^(*^&*^%.

Save yourself some time by simply buying the recommended GM tool for pulling. Ford is full of sh*t on their tool in this illustration.

In other words- I could not get this race to budge using the hammer slide tool. You may have better luck than me. That sucker was really in there. I needed to force it out with vertical jack extraction.

Look at the attachments for the tools or if you're feeling froggy like I was, you can make something like them to do the job.

Specs on beariCountershaft bearing specs:

SKF Sealing Solutions FC69178
Roller Bearing - 2.0250 in OD, 1.275 ID, 0.7210 in Width
"Mi Item #: 04695001"
"Mfr Description: FC69178 - CYLINDRICAL ROLLER BEARING/NEE"
https://www.motionindustries.com/productDetail.jsp?sku=04695001


Bearing specs – Shoe size to fabricate
OD WALL ID WALL FLANGE ID SHOE TOOL OD
2.0250 0.1070 1.9180 1.6280 1.7280

1.9180
1.7280
0.7210 -0.100

 

[Dave_Nevada]

Countershaft Bearing pain in the 6 document

See attached for document, Downloadable for printing.

 

[Dave_Nevada]

Mainshaft Notes

Mainshaft exploded view notes. Downloadable.

 

[Dave_Nevada]

see attached doc.

 

[Dave_Nevada]

Good stuff Dave! I would love to have an M35A2. Yours looks sweet!

2841/2843 - I had to stay another month in 29 Stumps for PLRS training. Lol! Ironically I probably should have just gone in as a 3521, since I mostly just turned wrenches when I was deployed. Also got out a SGT. Got promoted at my 4 year mark while in a field op in Shivta, Israel. Best promotion ceremony ever!

I got as close as I ever wanted to be to some action when we hit the beach in Greece and they issued us ammo. I was on the boarder of the Kosovo/Serbian boarder on the anniversary of the invasion as a speed bump if they decided to come across. That was when I was deployed with the 24th MEU. I'll never share the same kind of bond that I shared with those guys on that deployment. We were tight!

Here is another pic of me doing lord knows what on a hummer. Lol!

Thanks for sharing, your service and contributing such an awesome and insightful thread! This place needs more of this.

Justin



Me and the 'Stumps' are very familiar friends. Spent an entire year there in GRRC Radio School. Learned to fix every single piece of ground radio equipment the Corps has. Best dang school EVER! :thumbsup:

After that, they boxed me up and sent me to 3rd DSG, Comm Platoon, supporting 2/4 and 3/4 at Camp Hansen.

I LOVED OKINAWA. Best dang snorkeling on the planet. The sea life off-shore makes Hawaii look ghetto.

Played around on BLT's for a spell, took a nasty stroll into the Philippine jungle, Okinawa NTA, blah blah blah.

The Norks causing crap 3 times (nothing new there). pfft. LOL

CONUS- went to Yuma MCAS, 2nd LAMM Bn, fooled around with comm in a Hawk Missile Bn, then went to Reno and hooked up with 4th Force Recon. Had lots of fun and interesting activity there during the Cold War (Russki stuff and what not).

All in all, not bad. I'd do it again if they'd let me. hehehehe

 

[Dave_Nevada]

Countershaft gear removal with steel tube and a press

When you are at the stage of removing the countershaft gears from the intermediate housing, let me caution you on one thing: the manual says to use hooks to attach to the cross cast aluminium arms and extract the race and gears from the shaft.

For me, that's not such a good idea. Pulling up on one of those cast arms will break something eventually and that Intermediate housing isn't cheap.

So I devised a safer method of pressing the gear and race off by using my 20 ton press and a steel cylinder I bought from a local supplier that is a schedule 40, 6" x 18" ($50.00).

I put a piece of foam cushion in the bottom of the tube, lowered the entire countershaft gear set into the tube, placed two pieces of 1 x 1 steel bar under the Intermediate housing (spreads the load around), and mounted the entire assembly in the press.

Viola!! The dude came out liked greased goose crap. This really helped with other gears and removal, but this was significant.

Nothing was damaged, which is the point.

Others may scoff at this, but it worked very well for me; I'll do it again this way.

 

[Dave_Nevada]

Input shaft 7.3 destroyed surface

Someone put one of those El Cheapo 'band-aid' fixes on the input shaft. Well, as you can see, it's useless.

The input shaft needle bearing obviously chewed up the input shaft even though this is a 'sleeve'.

You have to ask yourself, how many times do I want to pull the trans and do this? Replace the input shaft and install a bronze solid bearing.

Also, some fool loaded up the quill with some sort of grease, which is 100% unnecessary.

I think whoever did this was simply desperate to make this thing quiet so they could sell it to some dude without them noticing. Problem was, I heard it as soon as I drove it.

No problem, I knew what I was getting into. Got the truck with 114, 000 on the clock for $7500 cash.

It needed the CPS sensor replaced (intermittent dying when you turn the wipers on), and this problem fixed.

i milked it another 40,000 miles before it 'gave it up'.

Even though I've spent a few thousand to keep her rolling, that's a crap ton less than a new truck. Besides, I literally have NO USE for a truck I can't go out in the sagebrush with, or a trip to the junkyard. A 'pretty truck' is just that. She's got bumps, bruises, and her paint is faded. So what? She gets 21 honest MPG when not towing, 19.5 MPG with a car trailer loaded. And she's paid for. No payments, NADA.

She sports a nice new set of Michelin shoes, rides like a cloud, and I never worry about any fool stealing her.

Life is good baby.

 

[psduser1]

The second pic is the quill?
As far as sleeving the input shaft, that should be fine, as long as the sleeve is Pressfit to the input shaft.
No needle bearings, Kevlar, whatever for the bearing surface.

 

[Dave_Nevada]

The second pic is the quill?
As far as sleeving the input shaft, that should be fine, as long as the sleeve is Pressfit to the input shaft.
------------
ZF calls the thowout bearing (clutch release bearing) tube a 'quill'.

Toploaders call it the input shaft bearing retainer.

That said, you have me curious about something. I still have the old input shaft with that silly snake oil sleeve on it. I think I will install the old input shaft on my metal lathe and mount my dial indicator on it to check the input shaft nose surface for total 'run-out'. This ought to be interesting.

Much will be revealed about the speculation if 'it's okay to do so'.

This will tell me how tall the ridges are from that needle bearing that went away.

You can make your own mind up as to whether or not a sleeve is a 'good thing'.

Honestly, this sleeve reminds me of an old BS trick people did to quiet down their truck trans back in the 50's. Throw in a hand-full of sawdust, and promptly SELL IT.

 

[euroford]

When you are at the stage of removing the countershaft gears from the intermediate housing, let me caution you on one thing: the manual says to use hooks to attach to the cross cast aluminium arms and extract the race and gears from the shaft.

For me, that's not such a good idea. Pulling up on one of those cast arms will break something eventually and that Intermediate housing isn't cheap.

So I devised a safer method of pressing the gear and race off by using my 20 ton press and a steel cylinder I bought from a local supplier that is a schedule 40, 6" x 18" ($50.00).

I put a piece of foam cushion in the bottom of the tube, lowered the entire countershaft gear set into the tube, placed two pieces of 1 x 1 steel bar under the Intermediate housing (spreads the load around), and mounted the entire assembly in the press.

Viola!! The dude came out liked greased goose crap. This really helped with other gears and removal, but this was significant.

Nothing was damaged, which is the point.

Others may scoff at this, but it worked very well for me; I'll do it again this way.

Thats a good solution!

I took the quick n dirty approach. Since the bearing race is hardened steel and pressed on, its fairly brittle and under a lot of tension. You can take a small cut-off wheel and cut about 1/3 of the way through the race, then one solid smack with a hammer and chisel in that cut and the race will crack and fall right off.

The race is only about $11 and replacement is advisable anyways.

 

[psduser1]

The second pic is the quill?
As far as sleeving the input shaft, that should be fine, as long as the sleeve is Pressfit to the input shaft.
------------
ZF calls the thowout bearing (clutch release bearing) tube a 'quill'.

Toploaders call it the input shaft bearing retainer.

That said, you have me curious about something. I still have the old input shaft with that silly snake oil sleeve on it. I think I will install the old input shaft on my metal lathe and mount my dial indicator on it to check the input shaft nose surface for total 'run-out'. This ought to be interesting.

Much will be revealed about the speculation if 'it's okay to do so'.

This will tell me how tall the ridges are from that needle bearing that went away.

You can make your own mind up as to whether or not a sleeve is a 'good thing'.

Honestly, this sleeve reminds me of an old BS trick people did to quiet down their truck trans back in the 50's. Throw in a hand-full of sawdust, and promptly SELL IT.

Yes, the throw out bearing retainer, lol.
I'd be curious about the run out on the input shaft, as well.
Both of my reman trans had been sleeved, I'd guess it's a popular corner to cut in the reman business. Not the best solution, obviously, just "good enough". I have no clue on availability of replacement hard parts for these gearboxes, maybe that is a factor.
I can tell you that when I pulled the 1st reman, the bushing was noticeably worn at about 80k miles, so the shaft was probably not true at the time of rebuild. However, that wasn't why I pulled the trans, lol.

 

[ja_cain]

Good stuff Dave! I would love to have an M35A2. Yours looks sweet!

2841/2843 - I had to stay another month in 29 Stumps for PLRS training. Lol! Ironically I probably should have just gone in as a 3521, since I mostly just turned wrenches when I was deployed. Also got out a SGT. Got promoted at my 4 year mark while in a field op in Shivta, Israel. Best promotion ceremony ever!

I got as close as I ever wanted to be to some action when we hit the beach in Greece and they issued us ammo. I was on the boarder of the Kosovo/Serbian boarder on the anniversary of the invasion as a speed bump if they decided to come across. That was when I was deployed with the 24th MEU. I'll never share the same kind of bond that I shared with those guys on that deployment. We were tight!

Here is another pic of me doing lord knows what on a hummer. Lol!

Thanks for sharing, your service and contributing such an awesome and insightful thread! This place needs more of this.

Justin



Me and the 'Stumps' are very familiar friends. Spent an entire year there in GRRC Radio School. Learned to fix every single piece of ground radio equipment the Corps has. Best dang school EVER!

After that, they boxed me up and sent me to 3rd DSG, Comm Platoon, supporting 2/4 and 3/4 at Camp Hansen.

I LOVED OKINAWA. Best dang snorkeling on the planet. The sea life off-shore makes Hawaii look ghetto.

Played around on BLT's for a spell, took a nasty stroll into the Philippine jungle, Okinawa NTA, blah blah blah.

The Norks causing crap 3 times (nothing new there). pfft. LOL

CONUS- went to Yuma MCAS, 2nd LAMM Bn, fooled around with comm in a Hawk Missile Bn, then went to Reno and hooked up with 4th Force Recon. Had lots of fun and interesting activity there during the Cold War (Russki stuff and what not).

All in all, not bad. I'd do it again if they'd let me. hehehehe

Good stuff Dave! I was at Palms for a little over a year. If I would have stayed in, I was either going satcom or working to pass the indoc so I could go the force recon route. At the time they really wanted to recruit techs.

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[Jomax]

Someone put one of those El Cheapo 'band-aid' fixes on the input shaft. Well, as you can see, it's useless.

The input shaft needle bearing obviously chewed up the input shaft even though this is a 'sleeve'.

You have to ask yourself, how many times do I want to pull the trans and do this? Replace the input shaft and install a bronze solid bearing.

Also, some fool loaded up the quill with some sort of grease, which is 100% unnecessary.

I think whoever did this was simply desperate to make this thing quiet so they could sell it to some dude without them noticing. Problem was, I heard it as soon as I drove it.

No problem, I knew what I was getting into. Got the truck with 114, 000 on the clock for $7500 cash.

It needed the CPS sensor replaced (intermittent dying when you turn the wipers on), and this problem fixed.

i milked it another 40,000 miles before it 'gave it up'.

Even though I've spent a few thousand to keep her rolling, that's a crap ton less than a new truck. Besides, I literally have NO USE for a truck I can't go out in the sagebrush with, or a trip to the junkyard. A 'pretty truck' is just that. She's got bumps, bruises, and her paint is faded. So what? She gets 21 honest MPG when not towing, 19.5 MPG with a car trailer loaded. And she's paid for. No payments, NADA.

She sports a nice new set of Michelin shoes, rides like a cloud, and I never worry about any fool stealing her.

Life is good baby.

Screw Michelin and their tires. I hope you have good luck with them.


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[Dave_Nevada]

Screw Michelin and their tires. I hope you have good luck with them.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Jomax, Michelin's got you a little cranky?

My personal experience is I've had nothing but good tread wear and ride with them.
I don't run oversize tires, nor are they used on a 4x4.

They work great on the highway, carry plenty of load, are very quiet and they have incredible wear. I rotate my tires frequently to get maximum wear life and make sure tire pressure is maintained. No complaints whatsoever.

But that's my experience with them, your's may be different.

I find preference for types of tires and the job they're supposed to do, not just brand, much more applicable in these conversations.

True, there are some real dogs out there for our trucks. But Diesels in general are pretty hard on any tire, regardless of brand.

But saying "...screw Michelin..." without stating your experience and why is what jurisprudence calls leading the witness' in a court room. It's irrelevant without a followup statement as to why you made the statement.

Care to share your experience?