Transmission Dissection

Today, I came into the workshop,  and did some metal stripping.  At the shop,  we take faulty transmissions and engines, and we separate the aluminium from the other alloys.  I had the opportunity to experience dismantling transmissions.  Now, as fun as it is to just pull things apart without the worries of damaging them,  it was just as fun to learn how manufacturers assemble parts,  and use tools used to disassemble them (and the dreadful and texture of the transmission fluid!).  The stripping involved plenty of inspecting closely for circlips, pins, tiny bolts, hex bolts, weird BMW bolts,  oil seals, etc.  

The boss decided that instead of paying me for labour, he would instead give me the job of pulling apart transmissions and engines, and selling the aluminium, and letting me keep the money.  (he's a dam good boss to have, best boss I've ever had to be honest.)

I do realise that this topic is not of curriculum, but I wanted to write a blog about it!  At Unitec, we have just started doing some hands-on work on transmissions,  It gives us a real good idea on how they work, the mechanisms used inside the transmission to change gear etc.  (I think it's bloody interesting) but it's fairly sophisticated.  Looking at photos of gearboxes,  I find it very hard to picture which of the gears are spinning freely and which aren't.  Tomorrow I will actually have a good study on this subject and draw myself a diagram to help get my head around all this.

Here are some pictures of today's experience.  

 I found this interesting.  I think they use this design for structural integrity of the box as well as some sort of heat ventilation for the electronics that sits behind this board.

 Today involved plenty of hard prying and hammering.

 ...And so on

 I did eventually clean up my work bench after I got sick of getting transmission fluid on all my tools.  

 Only had my express tool box with me,  I did use air tools for this work

 Plenty of bolts came out of the boxes I disassembled.

 Bottom of the bell housing, where flywheel/torque converter sits

 I used a steel tray to prevent spillage of transmission fluid

 Bin for metal scraps 

 AWD gear box,  notice the front diff and it's position relative to the bottom of the bell housing and the starter motor mount.  Also notice the hole where the input shaft runs down to the actual gear box

 This is what the AWD transmission looks like assembled.  I think it came out of a Subaru but I'm not sure.

Some of the tools I used to do a lot of the prying that was involved.