[CBoz]

Hello Folks -

Well, I've finally been able to gather all the parts for my tranny rebuild. Basically, same as a Ford, and as far as I can tell, has never been rebuilt (it has '37 dated bearings and the car's VIN stamped on the case).

One of the things I noticed is that in the 1937 chassis manual, the exploded drawing of the tranny doesn't show any oil seal between the front bearing retainer and front bearing, but the part *is* listed. In the 1938 Chassis manual, the oil seal shows up in the picture and listing.
I purchased an oil seal, and found to my surprise it was too large to fit in the front bearing retainer. "What gives?", I thought.
Well, on closer inspection, I noticed my front bearing retainer has a spiral machined into the inner shaft. When the engine is going, it appears that this shaft will spin "toward" the tranny.
This is a guess, but it seems that this may be to "throw" any oil that leaks by back toward the tranny -- an early (and evidently unsuccessful) way to prevent leaks. Any other ideas?

[Rolf]

Hi Cece, you always bring up such interesting trivia, for an old Ford parts man at least, there was a seal used on '37 and up Fords and Lincolns, it is a 78 7052, used on both F&L, am not certain what was used before, but it may well be the B-7050 dscribed as a bearing retainer that was used in Fords from '32-'36, but had no 7052 seal, but the '36 Zephyr used the later 78-7050, that had a seal, as should your '37, but you have to have the correct 7050 as well, don't worry about it, am sure the early incorrect bearing retainer will work fine, but it is possible that these later parts book disregarded the B7050, and arbitrarily updated them to the 78-7050 the 78 number would not be correct for a '36 Zephyr for sure, 'caus '37 hadn't even happened yet, right?? Really interesting, sorry to throw a monkey wrench in to your plans, Rolf