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Today was a long yet successful day! I left my house at 8am and didn't get back home til 12:30am. I drove up to North Missouri where I met up with Festiva_Fred and we drove another hour to a guys house to scavenge some Festy parts.
Well my problems actually started 2 weeks ago when I was driving back to Rolla from Jefferson City and 4th gear kept popping out. For the next several days I could hold it back in and then it finally quit working all together. I proceeded to take it on a 500 mile round trip the next weekend and was just skipping 4th. This is why I was meeting up with Fred to go to this guys house and grab a transmission. Well 5 miles from the Macon area where I was meeting Fred...a good 2 hours and 20 minutes from my house...I was coasting along at about 70 and 5th gear popped out!! Again holding it in seemed to work fine. Also about 20 miles from Macon my washer fluid stopped spraying and it had snowed the night before so the roads were slush and my window was getting nasty! I made it the hour drive from Macon pretty much holding it in 5th the whole time and was still maintaining speeds of 65-70.
We get there and start tearing into the car we are gonna grab the transmission from and we were gonna do the smart thing and just unbolt it from the engine and drop it out the bottom. Well a little bit into removing bolts here and there we realized one of the cross member bolts was rusted too bad and so removing the cross member wasn't going to happen. Plan B. Remove the head and the two of us pull the engine and transmission out through the top. Though it did take longer than we were hoping it worked out. I got my tranny and there was basically a brand new clutch in it so Fred took that and the flywheel for his auto-to-5speed conversion. We each snagged a few more things and hit the road.
Me and Fred pulled up in the field to grab some parts. There was an Aspire, Blue Festy, Red Festy, and Silver Festy there. We stole from mostly the Silver one not pictured. I would have grabbed more pics, but my phone died!
Just wanted a shot of my car to show how dang gross the roads were!
Not very far down the road and I realize 5th just isn't gonna cooperate. Even with me holding it in gear I couldn't get it to stop popping out when we hit speeds of 40+ miles an hour. So I called Fred...who I was following...and told him we were gonna have to putt along at under 45. Neither one of us had eaten anything since breakfast and it was like 7:30 before we got to a town that actually had a restaurant, but we over shot Subway and pulled into some spots on mainstreet to discuss where we were gonna eat. When we went to leave that's when I realized I couldn't get it to go in reverse at all! Luckily it was on a flat surface so I was able to just roll it back.
Well needless to say we grabbed some food and I let Fred hit the road so I didn't have to slow him down. I stopped at a gas station and put some tranny fluid in my car...hoping that was gonna help my situation. Unfortunately that was a no go. So I had to take the 3 hour drive (If you can go the speed limit..60-70 most of the way) home at speeds of 37-43 most of the way. Though I was hitting speeds of 50+ in several spots that head steep downhills. That helped considerably!
The good news is I'm home. I'm safe! And I have a "new" transmission!
Well my problems actually started 2 weeks ago when I was driving back to Rolla from Jefferson City and 4th gear kept popping out. For the next several days I could hold it back in and then it finally quit working all together. I proceeded to take it on a 500 mile round trip the next weekend and was just skipping 4th. This is why I was meeting up with Fred to go to this guys house and grab a transmission. Well 5 miles from the Macon area where I was meeting Fred...a good 2 hours and 20 minutes from my house...I was coasting along at about 70 and 5th gear popped out!! Again holding it in seemed to work fine. Also about 20 miles from Macon my washer fluid stopped spraying and it had snowed the night before so the roads were slush and my window was getting nasty! I made it the hour drive from Macon pretty much holding it in 5th the whole time and was still maintaining speeds of 65-70.
We get there and start tearing into the car we are gonna grab the transmission from and we were gonna do the smart thing and just unbolt it from the engine and drop it out the bottom. Well a little bit into removing bolts here and there we realized one of the cross member bolts was rusted too bad and so removing the cross member wasn't going to happen. Plan B. Remove the head and the two of us pull the engine and transmission out through the top. Though it did take longer than we were hoping it worked out. I got my tranny and there was basically a brand new clutch in it so Fred took that and the flywheel for his auto-to-5speed conversion. We each snagged a few more things and hit the road.
Me and Fred pulled up in the field to grab some parts. There was an Aspire, Blue Festy, Red Festy, and Silver Festy there. We stole from mostly the Silver one not pictured. I would have grabbed more pics, but my phone died!
Just wanted a shot of my car to show how dang gross the roads were!
Not very far down the road and I realize 5th just isn't gonna cooperate. Even with me holding it in gear I couldn't get it to stop popping out when we hit speeds of 40+ miles an hour. So I called Fred...who I was following...and told him we were gonna have to putt along at under 45. Neither one of us had eaten anything since breakfast and it was like 7:30 before we got to a town that actually had a restaurant, but we over shot Subway and pulled into some spots on mainstreet to discuss where we were gonna eat. When we went to leave that's when I realized I couldn't get it to go in reverse at all! Luckily it was on a flat surface so I was able to just roll it back.
Well needless to say we grabbed some food and I let Fred hit the road so I didn't have to slow him down. I stopped at a gas station and put some tranny fluid in my car...hoping that was gonna help my situation. Unfortunately that was a no go. So I had to take the 3 hour drive (If you can go the speed limit..60-70 most of the way) home at speeds of 37-43 most of the way. Though I was hitting speeds of 50+ in several spots that head steep downhills. That helped considerably!
The good news is I'm home. I'm safe! And I have a "new" transmission!
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