I am in the process of restoring my newest acquisition - a 1964 Mark II 3.8 4 speed with overdrive. The car needs everything and is not driveable now. I started the engine successfully and it runs fine. I pulled the motor/clutch/transmission/overdrive last week to detail the engine and the engine compartment. I want to eventually check on the clutch and the overdrive while the motor is out of the car. I am going to assume that the transmission is OK. Before I unbolted the clutch from the engine I thought I'd run a test to see if the overdrive was working. I really do not want to open up that overdrive unless it is necessary. So, I put the engine in 4th gear and ( with the plugs loosened) turned the crank shaft 360 degrees and found that the tail shaft rotated 360 degrees also. Then I attached a battery to the overdrive solenoid and it clicked-in very nicely. Again in 4th gear I rotated the crank 360 degrees. I was hoping for more that a 360 degree rotation on the prop shaft. No such luck. It rotated only 360 degrees again. Can anyone tell me if my test proves that there is, in fact, a problem with the overdrive? Or does the engine have to be running and the car moving to engage the overdrive gears??
Your test tells you you have no major mechanical issues and the elec. part works. Overdrives need a lot of pumped oil pressure to work. The overdrive needs the engine to be running and you need to be in 4th gear and moving. I guess you could make a rig to test it in a static mode but you will need to presurize the overdrive pistons. I always bench check the ODs with air pressure but then again they are clean and have been rebuilt! There is no way I would do all the work you are doing w/o going through that OD.
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