Part 13: Four Plus One Equals a Highway Cruiser

Here, you can see the difference in the long and short shafts.

The bearing on the left is the 308, and the one on the right is the 307.As stated before, you need to replace the 307 with the 308.

After putting all the gears, clutch sleeves, stop rings, and bearingsback in place, install the newly assembled longer tailshaft into theintermediate housing. If you already have a long-tailshaft tranny, youneed not disassemble the output shaft. While installing the output shaftinto the housing, with the new 308 bearing, expand the snap ring insteadof contracting it as with the 307.

Remember the needle bearings mentioned earlier? Once you've collectedthem all, reinstall them into the center of the input shaft, and givethem a light coating of grease to hold them in place.

When you get the tail assembly re-installed into the tranny case,replace the shift forks in their respective locations and re-install thecover plate. GV supplies the gaskets for the job. Although this imagedoesn't show it, replacing the output housing assembly into the case isa trying task. You must place the reverser gear at its mid-travel pointand lower the Third- and Fourth-clutch sleeve half the distance of itstravel in order to get the assembly started into the housing. Afterthat, you must get the gears to align, and, when everything slidestogether, hope the needle bearings haven't fallen out of place.

Before you go any farther, GV recommends that there be a .005-.045-inch space when measuring between the gasket face of the housing adaptor and the splined coupler that connects to the GV unit.

GV supplies these spacers that fit on the tranny side in the coupler. Simply pull the coupler out of the housing, insert the required amount of supplied spacers, and reinstall the coupler.

Don't forget to install a tranny breather in the new housing adaptor.

The second issue with this setup is the shifter mounting location. TheGV housing has locations for E- and B-Body shifters, but the A-Bodyshifter is between those locations.