Went to drive overto the goodguys show yesterday and made it about 15miles before I started to smell oil... Noticed some a little smoke coming from under the seat so pulled over fast.. motor is kinda tired so it has some blow by but when I looked under it seemed to be coming from the passenger side rear of the trans.. I looked and found this open hole... I changed the oil in it last August but can't say that I remember seeing anything missing It is straight across from where the speedo cable is on the drivers side.. I'm not really familiar with these.. from what my buddy had said when he was still around and built the car is that it was the early (49) merc trans.. Not sure what is supposed to be in that threaded hole... Thought about having a place here in Ohio (vanpelt sales) go through the overdrive section to make sure everything is good inside. Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
If I remember correctly, that is the drain for the Overdrive unit. It's just a plug. OD & gearbox have separate levels.
That's where the overdrive governor is supposed to go. The OD and trans have separate fill plugs but use a common drain in the trans. The governor enables/disables the OD according to vehicle speed.
The drain/fill for it is on the drivers side little in front of the speedo cable I remember that due to draining the trans first then when I went to drain the OD last year it was empty.. and I was confused by that.. I thought they were separate Ok only thing I could find was pics and it liked kinda like the solenoid on the other side just didn't know what it was.. I was thinking he said that he used a kit that did away with a lot of the electronics for the OD and it's just controlled from a 12v switch and a pull cable... Is it possible that the governor was just plugged of being setup that way? Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
I believe that only the early ODs had the separate drain for the OD. The later ones eliminated it as they all would drain with the trans. You do need to fill/check the OD separately. 'Simplifying' the OD wiring is common (and a huge mistake IMO) so that you don't need the kickdown switch and relay. In most cases the governor is left in place and can be left functioning. If you remove it, plugging the hole that's left is difficult because a welch plug doesn't fit the hole right. Yours probably fell out (or may be floating around inside the OD housing...). Personally, I'd install a governor even if you don't add the rest of the wiring as that will allow it to automatically engage/disengage the OD while town driving at speeds between 20 and 30 MPH and save you a bunch of shifting and/or manually engaging/disengaging the OD. Some will claim that you can get 'six speeds' by operating the OD manually, but if you do the math what you really end up with is still just 3 speeds with OD. 1st OD is nearly the same as 2nd standard, 2nd OD is nearly the same as 3rd standard. So in terms of gear spread, you gain almost nothing.
Dang good info there! Thanks!! I will call that place here in Ohio and see what they have going on and what they have for parts also... Thing I don't like about the way it's setup now is if the OD is engaged and locked in.. you can't backup.. I was always afraid it forgotten about and in a hurry, go to backup fast it would bust the pin or break something major inside. Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
The Jalopy Journal
