Posted by David Sherman on Sunday, October 03, 2004 at 11:42PM :
In Reply to: Spicer 3053A transmission needed... posted by Jonas on Sunday, October 03, 2004 at 4:56PM :
Brad Milne in Yelm, (360)400-1694, works for the guy who has the scrap contract at Ft Lewis has lots of 3053s. The good news is he wants $125 for them, which seems very reasonable. The bad news is the last time I was there, every one of them has more or less rust inside from water leaking into the tower. The rubber boot on these trannies does not keep the water out. Any tranny that's sat out or even any one in a truck that didn't have a cab top on it, probably has some rust in it. You have to pull the tops off all of them and look. There are some with just rust on the teeth of the gears right under the tower, but no pool of water in the bottom and no rust on the bearings, which is about as good as you can expect. No matter who you buy one from, if it was ever exposed to the weather either because the tranny sat out by itself or the truck it came from didn't have a decent top on the cab, be sure to pull the top cover and look for rust. I'm learning this lesson the hard way. Brad gets a PTO now and then, but of course they are more scarce and he likes to keep them to sell with full winch setups. You might also try Dean Malin, also in Yelm.