T20 question

[smudvapor]

I have a question about T20’s. Are there two different designs of the shafts that go into each housing? The short one that does not have the clutch on it is solid on the end that faces the inside of the housing. The other one I have is hollow and I think that the shaft from the other side actually goes inside of it. My problem is that I used parts from two transmissions and now I think I need to take them all apart and switch parts or see if I can get a shaft that is hollow. Am I making any sense?

[hydromike]

I'm thinking that you're talking about the output shafts, right? These are the shafts that have the drive sprockets attached to them. The port side is hollow and allows the input shaft to pass through it, and the starboard shaft (on newer, post mid-70s) is solid. Before the mid-seventies, the starboard side output shaft had a bearing pressed into it, and the input shaft extended INTO this shaft. We collectively call this the "supported shaft" T-20. There's really no way to put it together "wrong", because it either simply wouldn't go together, or you'd have a gaping hole on the right side of the transmission if you put the wrong output shaft on the starboard side.


::EDIT::.... I suppose you could put the older output shaft in it (the one that has the bearing on the inside-end), with a newer non-supported shaft, but it wouldn't "hurt" anything per se; the bearing just wouldn't be doing anything since the newer shaft wouldn't insert into it.


Does this help?

[smudvapor]

I'm thinking that you're talking about the output shafts, right? These are the shafts that have the drive sprockets attached to them. The port side is hollow and allows the input shaft to pass through it, and the starboard shaft (on newer, post mid-70s) is solid. Before the mid-seventies, the starboard side output shaft had a bearing pressed into it, and the input shaft extended INTO this shaft. We collectively call this the "supported shaft" T-20. There's really no way to put it together "wrong", because it either simply wouldn't go together, or you'd have a gaping hole on the right side of the transmission if you put the wrong output shaft on the starboard side.


::EDIT::.... I suppose you could put the older output shaft in it (the one that has the bearing on the inside-end), with a newer non-supported shaft, but it wouldn't "hurt" anything per se; the bearing just wouldn't be doing anything since the newer shaft wouldn't insert into it.


Does this help?

Here is the problem that I have. When I try to put the two halves together the ends of the shafts hit one another and the won't let them come all the way together.

[Don]

You will either need a different input shaft or different passenger side output shaft (or take the other transmission apart and start swapping out parts.)

[phabib]

The other possibility is what I ran into. You need to pull the input shaft out all the way in order for the halves to close. The way I did it was to get a piece of 2" pipe about 2-3 inches long and a flat piece of metal bar big enough to span across the opening of the pipe (about 3") with a 3/8" hole drilled in the middle of it. I used that as kind of a puller to pull the input shaft out using a bolt into the threaded part of the input shaft. That allowed the halves to meet and close.

This wasn't a new invention or anything, plenty of photos of it here on the site. Until I did that, I could not get my case to close.