259, 260 ... whatever it takes

Why does this have to be so hard? What is the point of inventing Google if it can't even decode your manufacturing stamps on your transmission?


My transmission has LOTS of numbers on it:

  • the transmission body: AF 7006 D 21
  • the side-cover: AB 7222 B
  • the tail: WAR 7651 A


And would YOU like to guess how many of those YOU can use to look up which parts YOU might order for a rebuild kit? NONE of them.

If you want to know where to buy parts to do a rebuild on the 3-speed, manual transmission in your 1962 Mercury Monterey 4-door sedan, you can go through the following steps:
  1. spend 45 minutes looking up numbers that are flat wrong because the pictures you have are just not very clear until you go outside and take more pictures
    • check - and try not to transfer the oil to your face when you go back in - it causes your daughter / the project manager to ask questions that have no answer
  2. know a guy who just knows
    • check - that didn't take long to find the answer was "nope"
  3. know a guy who knows a guy who might know
    • check - Thank you 'Other Doug'
  4. read umpteen forum posts with circular answers and notions of taking it apart and measuring some very specific distances between very specific parts ... but that don't lead you to a conclusion on where to buy any parts you might want or need
    • check - seems like a lot of people just want to know how many gears their steel ice cream cone has or whether their particular hunk of stuff was 'original' on this car
    • (optional) ponder the question - Who really thinks that someone removed a transmission within the last 60 years and replaced it with another transmission that was about 60 years old? - and - Why is the exchange of a 1959 very basic manual 3-speed with a 1961 very basic manual 3-speed a crisis of conscious for some dude who lives in Nebraska?
  5. look at 100 pictures of 3-speed side-loading manual transmissions and their exploded diagram that offer no more clues than the numbers you already have
    • check - except on the car-guy forum all the numbers are subtly different - so maybe they mean something ... mine has a 21, but raccoon_fordman57 has an 18 ... so that might be the secret to ... ah nuts
  6. after an hour, accidentally trip over someone who mentions "Ford 259"
    • check - new clue to the meaning of a life of rust and grease
  7. immediately find rebuild kits for "Ford 259"
    • check - but also notice that the same people sell rebuild kits for "Borg Warner T85"
  8. assume Ford 259 and Borg Warner T85 are just different names for the same thing
    • check - looks very very similar on the outside and was installed in Fords of this model year
  9. spend another 30 minutes neurotically looking at the same two web pages until you are almost certain that "Ford 259" was almost exclusively used in cars, while "Borg Warner T85" was almost exclusively used in trucks
    • check - you made it - "Ford 259" it is
    • (optional) almost certain? almost exclusively? what do these things even mean?
I think the reason this research is so difficult is that the venn diagram of people who rebuild their own transmissions and the people who are avid users of the internet searches produces an intersection that is thin enough you could use it for cigarette paper.

Comments

  1. Tractor BoyOctober 14, 2021 at 7:59 PM

    Diogenes had a twin also named Diogenes who sought the meaning of transmission codes. He was looking for a wholly grail which listed the true identity of any transmission at least 60 years old. After much searching he found a partial grayling, but try as he might he could never discern what it was partial to. Or so the pun goes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Robert AdamsOctober 15, 2021 at 7:48 AM

      Hah! But I am surprised you would use a cynic/stoic as a character in this project. There is no room to be cynical or stoic on this project ... but maybe I could work a salmonidae into the motif.

      Delete

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