O.K. fellas,
I was going to stay away from this completely once I received the new gearset from Keisler. My dealings with them are completed and they came through and shared the loss for the failure. I want everyone to understand that.
When I sent the gearbox back to Keisler for warranty inspection, someone who I spoke to about my situation, whom just purchased the tranny from them, contacted them and mentioned an aquaintence with a mopar raced the car once and blew third gear. Around that time, I posted on this and Pro-touring to get some answers for this failure and some results as far as honoring the failure. I stated on the protouring site that it was in a Chevelle because if they were monitoring this site, they would know outright it was my Charger and not warranty it. It was installed in my 1968 Charger. the Chevelle was just a cover. I was ambiguis on this site for the same reason and don't think I mentioned what car it was in. Sorry to have had to do that.
Anyway back to the failure. In my opinion (I am one who has rebuilt manual transmissions before and understands the fundimentals, but I am not a professional by any means) The problem lies with Tremec. I have installed the new gearset and painted many of the teeth with gear contact pattern paint to see the mesh, and you guys are so correct. There definitely is a misalignment problem. I have attached photos of the trial installation and dead-on photo to see from straight on angle. All other gears look very well aligned except for third gear.
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o...9/100_1076.jpg
It is mis-aligned by a large amount in my opinion. Shimming the driven gear forward would not correct this as there is not much room before you start to squeeze the snchro hub and blocker rings together. It just looks like the one-piece countershaft was ground with too much clearance between second and third gears.
I have an e-mail in to the tremec tech with pictures asking how this could be designed this way and the fix.
Do you guys have any ideas how to correct this. I feel I am in the same boat I was in before it broke. Only this time, I am staying away from the track.
Thanks for your advice, and I think if it is possible, others should inspect theirs to see if there is a mis-alignment in theirs too.
By the way, ALL OF THE NEEDLE BEARINGS IN THE ENTIRE TRANNY ASSEMBLY WERE PRESENT AND PROPERLY INSTALLED, so that is not the cauuse of the failure. Input shaft end play was right at .000" and all gear endplays and backlashes were within spec. with the exception of 2nd gear end play @ .022" when .018" max was specified. I don't think that would affect this case though.