Several Questions regarding tranny swap....

["David Nedved" <david@domain.elided>]

 Hi All,

Over the holidays my 727 died, and I bought a T-19A Wide, and paid a local
shop to swap them.  The good news is that the shop was VERY cheap, they only
charged me $350 to swap trannies, including rigging up the clutch pedal,
lengthening the clutch pedal linkage for the body lift, etc. etc.  Anyway,
you get what you pay for... now the truck (78 Scout II, 345) has a terrible
vibration at a little above idle speed, which smoothes out for awhile, and
then gets terrible when I try to exceed 53MPH (sorry, don't have a tach,
don't know axle ratios...).  Anyway, the shop did have the flywheel
resurfaced prior to installation, and when I asked what could be done, he
told me my options were to get another used flywheel, and pay him a couple
hundred in labor, and he would swap them, with no promise of getting any
better (or worse).  He said my only other option was to have the flywheel
balanced to the crankshaft... maybe when I rebuild the engine, but not now
thanks...

Anyway, the transmission shop owner said it was "normal" for an old truck
with a manual transmission.  I personally find it very frustrating, not to
mention worrying about possible additional wear on the engine.  If I hadn't
paid so little, I would be really pushing them to fix this, but as it is I
don't want them touching my truck again.  Can anyone comment on how smooth
their manual transmission runs?  Any ideas for improving this?  Granted
anything to be done would require pulling the transmission, but that alone
sounds reasonable, if there was some way of getting a much smoother running
truck, and the ability to break 55MPH... the truck used to do 80 easily with
the 727...

Also, the transmission was sent to me with a new plate to mount the shifter
boots to, however it seems to be from a different transmission -- both the
shifter hole and the xfer case hole are about 3 inches too far to the rear
of the truck.  The shop used a hacksaw to enlarge the holes for me (gee
thanks...) so this one is ruined.  The one that my 727 used has the xfer
case hole in the right place, and I have cut a hole for the shifter, however
the patched hole from the auto shifter looks terrible...  anyway, does
anyone have the correct transmission plate for sale?

Finally, what sort of lube should I run in the T19?  Are there drain and
fill holes like the transfer case?  I looked briefly for them, but didn't
see them.  Also, the reverse lights don't work, there are two wires with
plugs dangling in the transmission area, one is hooked up to the manual (but
apparently does nothing) and the other is hanging loose.  Any ideas what
these were / are?  Is this an applied ground, or applied positive switch?

Thanks a bunch in advance.

David
--
David Nedved