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MoC's Build Thread

286K views 2K replies 120 participants last post by  Jim1611 
#1 ·
Hey guys, over the next 3 weeks I am planning on rebuilding T176 tranny, replacing tcase seals, replacing u joints, replacing clutch and clutch hardware. This will be my first tranny rebuilt attempt and from what I have read here I think it is defiantly do able on my end. Also planning on painting tcase and tranny, drive shafts, and frame & tub area from engine back to gas tank. Using the Novak rebuilt kit. So its going to be a little project. So my first question is for the guys that have rebuilt the t176 how long did it you to just do the rebuilt from start to finish?

I will post pictures from start to finish along the way.
 
#4 ·
Take a look at the pics on my build starting at #73 and the first few pages of Daves build http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f8/daves-83-cj7-build-891652/. His build really helped me a lot, as did some PM's from yellow85cj:thumbsup:.

It took me about 8 hours of actual work over a weekend, but my tranny was already out and on the bench. Lot easier than I thought it would be. Good luck.
 
#6 ·
Made some progress this morning. With some LSUTiger help we had everything down in about 1.5 hours. Took the tcase, tranny, and skid down as one. Came down easy. Tons of grease and oil everywhere. The fly wheel is worst off than I was hoping for. The ring gear has two bad spots, little bit small blue spots, and 2 scraps that are deep. Going to price out resurfacing it and replaceing the ring gear to see if it is just easier to get a clean replacement.
 

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#7 ·
When it all came out found that part of the tranny mount was broken. Also was missing 4 bolts out of the bellhousing.

So thats it for this weekend. I am thinking next weekend I an going to degrease and clean frame and under the tub saturday. Then sunday prime and paint it tub underside and frame.
 

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#8 ·
Made a little progress this weekend and today. Spent about 9 hours wire wheeling & degreasing and got the frame and under side of the tub cleaned up. Most of the underside was covered with 1/8 - 1/4 inch of crude from 24 years of leaks and abuse. Put a coat of white primer on everything and painted the pipes with black high temp paint. Next is a 2 coats of paintable rubberized coating and then 2 coats of gloss black. Tranny rebuilt kit will be here friday so I guess I will get on that next.
 

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#10 ·
Thanks Chase! It was so dirty that I have to throw away the pair of coveralls I worn to do it in. Know way if all that grease they were making it in to my washing machine. About 1/2 though I started getting real tired of doing it but the end product is worth it. Going to paint the bellhousing, tranny, and tcase gloss grey.
 
#12 ·
MoC...WOW what a difference. Nice Job :thumbsup:

Its amazing what a bunch of elbow grease will do. Keep the pics coming :highfive:
 
#16 ·
Eagle, John, Bad, and 243. On my list of special tools needed for the t176 I have
-snap ring pliers
-bearing puller
-two wooden dowels to keep the parts in order and orientated the correct direction

Anything else that you guys can think of. Going to start to read over the rebuilt in the CJ FSM tomorrow to prep myself. Whats the deal with Vaseline, is it just used for the needle bearings?

I also have a spare t176 with a broken tail piece from LSUTiger to use as a reference and spare parts. (found out a few days ago that my front shaft is bent as well as well) Any other last minute tips or tricks?
 
#18 ·
I got 3 spray cans of ruberized under coating on today and I am about a can short. Going to finish that up tomorrow and but 2 coats of black on friday and call that a done deal.

I was reading through the FSM t176 rebuilt today and have another of many questions. They use "arbor tool" to remove the contershaft. A different "arbor tool" is used in the assembly of the needle bearings on the reverse idler gear and counter shaft. So not really sure what a arbor tool is. Sounds like a punch of some type. Fill me in brothers...
 
#21 ·
Eagle, John, Bad, and 243. On my list of special tools needed for the t176 I have
-snap ring pliers
-bearing puller
-two wooden dowels to keep the parts in order and orientated the correct direction

Anything else that you guys can think of. Going to start to read over the rebuilt in the CJ FSM tomorrow to prep myself. Whats the deal with Vaseline, is it just used for the needle bearings?

I also have a spare t176 with a broken tail piece from LSUTiger to use as a reference and spare parts. (found out a few days ago that my front shaft is bent as well as well) Any other last minute tips or tricks?
I used a 1/2 conduit as an arbor for the reverse gear and a 1/2 plastic pipe for the arbor for the counter shaft. Both are exactly the correct size. You just got to cut it to the correct length.




Vasaline is used to keep needle bearings in place during assembly.
 
#22 ·
Little progress update....

Finished coating the under side of the jeep with the rubberized under coating and got a coat of gloss black on. Going to probably do 2 more coats of black.

Got both the spare broken t176 and my broken t176 taken apart. The first one took a little longer than the second. Got the second broken down to the case in about 15 minutes. I have yet to break down the main shaft cluster, going to save that until I am ready to put it back together. I did notice that my case has a gash in the inside. Maybe I will rebuilt it with the spare case. What yall think? (see pictures) Also when I took my original case down the front bearing was stuck in the cap. I have not though about how to solve that one.
 

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#23 ·
Well did a little inspection of gears and such today. Both of the reverse idler gears I have are dinged up. The darker one is from my tranny and the lighter one from the spare. I am certain that the darker one os done, what do you tranny guys think about the lighter one? The first two pictures is the lighter one. In the last to the one on the right is the lighter one.
 

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#26 ·
MoC... that's great! Heck of a nice job. I can't believe the before and after pics. What did you use for a degreaser?

Regarding the gears... I can't tell a significant difference between either of them! I think they should both be replaced, IMO.
 
#28 ·
For the majority of the work I just used a grinder with a wire wheel attachment on it. Some of the tighter spots I had to use a wire wheel on a drill or brush it by hand. Honestly that took almost all the sludge off without using degrease. The areas that were really heavy with the sludge the paint came right off down to shiny steel. I did have do use some purple power degreaser on a rag to wipe down a few areas.

MoC, moving along nicely:). On the case, I can't make out the gash you mentioned, but if it's not cracked, I doubt it will be a problem.

On the reverse gear, I'd say change the gear, especially since it's not very expensive, $40. Could you tell what was causing the wear. Were the thrust washers on each side of the shaft when you pulled the reverse cluster? May simply be wear and at some point, the PO didn't change the fluids.

How does the other gears look?
If you look at the two case pictures you can see where the fill plug hole is. Above the fill plug there is a metal ridge that runs vertical down to the top of the fill plug which appears to be there to give the plug hole a little more rigidity. On the dirtier case you can see that the ridge is damaged.

When I took the case apart both had the thrust washers in place. The one on mine was worn and about only 1/2 of it left. The other gears all look to be in good condition. Maybe just normal wear from trying to "throw" it in reverse to quick. Was hoping to get it back together this weekend but I guess replacing the gear since it is cheap is the right thing to do.
 
#27 ·
MoC, moving along nicely:). On the case, I can't make out the gash you mentioned, but if it's not cracked, I doubt it will be a problem.

On the reverse gear, I'd say change the gear, especially since it's not very expensive, $40. Could you tell what was causing the wear. Were the thrust washers on each side of the shaft when you pulled the reverse cluster? May simply be wear and at some point, the PO didn't change the fluids.

How does the other gears look?
 
#29 ·
I noticed the difference and the pics appear to be casting differences. Is the bottom of the ridge rounded over or jagged/gouged?

Not that it matters much, but here's the numbers for 176 and 177 trannys. Numbers should be on a tag riveted to the cases. My 86 had what I thought mine was a 176 but turned out to be a 177.

5359389=T-177 3.82 first gear
5359890=T-176 3.52 first gear

BTW. Take close look at your shifter housing. Mine was cracked at the pins, probably from the PO doing the same type of "throwing". The cracks weren't noticed until I cleaned the housing and DA me waited until I finished the gears before I found it.
 
#30 ·
So made some progress yesterday, and only have a few questions so far. I will put the questions in bold to make it a little easier to pick them out.

Got the case cleaned up.


After that got the reverse idler gear needle bearings in place and installed the idle gear washers. (washers not pictured)


First question related to the reverse idler thrust washers.. The instructions say "Note that the thrust washers have flats on them. Be sure to install the washers so these flats will face the mainshaft. Also, be sure to engage the thrust washer locating tabs in the case locating slots." So I understand what they want me to do. My old thrust washers were metal and in good shape so I reused them instead of using the plastic one the kit came with. The thrust washers are exactly the same so to install them the way the instruction say one has to have the locating tab facing up and out and the other has to have the locating tab facing down and out. The problem that I ran in to is that when the tab is facing down and out it does not properly fit in to the case locating slot at the bottom of the case.

I tried both my old thrust washers and the new ones, also tried both cases and the locating tab just is to big to fit in the case which you can see in the picture. I looks to me that the flats have to face the main shaft so that the cluster shaft assembly has the proper clearance. I went ahead and installed the reverse idler with the one thrust washer orientated in the wrong direction, but again its the only way that fits properly. If installed the way the instructions say it does not fit flush against the case.

After that I assembled the cluster shaft (not pictured just needle bearings and 2 washers) and then test fit in to the case and everything appears to clear properly. The one idler thrust washer that is the correct way appears to be the only one that really needs the clearance. Anyone else run in to this problem?

So moved on to the main shaft next. Took the old one apart and cleaned it up. Next assembled the 1st / 2nd gear synchro hub. (front and back picture) I made sure that when I installed the synchro springs that I open end faces 180 opposite each other.




After that installed the 1st /2nd gear synchro hub and reverse gear on the main shaft. Installed its snap ring.


From that point installed the first gear synchro.


Then 1st gear and its 1st gear thrust washer. (This looks different from the other thrust washers and amounts to just a washer looking thing.)


From there I 2nd gear synchro.


Then slid 2nd gear on to the shaft.


After second gear went on I installed the tabbed 2nd gear thrust washer and then the 2nd gear snap ring.


Next 3rd gear went on.


And to finish up the night I then slid the 3rd gear synco on the shaft.


So hear comes the next question The next thing to do is assemble the 3rd / 4th gear syncro hub. The directions say than on this hub there should be alignment marks.


I cleaned the parts off good and can not find anything that looks like the marks.


Also I noticed that the 3rd /4th gear syncro hub parts look different between my hub parts (the one pictured off the shaft) and the hub parts on the spare tranny I am using as a guide.(The one pictured on the shaft.)

If you look at the two parts you can see mine is flat on the top and square and the spare one is beveled on both ends. I first though that is was wear but then came across a picture on eaglekeepers built and his is beveled as well. Ideas? My thoughts were to take / use the hub off of the spare shaft and make sure that I keep it aligned.

So that is it for now tomorrow once I get some of these questions answered I am going to finish up. All you tranny experts please look over what I have done so far! Thanks guys!
 
#38 ·
Thats what I ended up having to do but the instructions say "Note that the thrust washers have flats on them. Be sure to install the washers so these flats will face the mainshaft" If I understand the instructions correctly that means that both of the flat spots on both thrust washers have to face towards the main shaft. Both of the thrust washers are the exact same on the rebuilt kit and the orignal ones. If I flip the pictured thrust washer so that the locating tab fits in the upper slot in the case the flat side know longer faces the main shaft.
 
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