I love my 69 autostick but DAMN it frustrates the hell out of me sometimes!
I don't know how much any of you know about autosticks or care, but basically the way it works is, there is a set of eletrical contacts at the base of the shifter-- when you shift, those contacts rub together creating a grounded circuit that sends a signal to a vacuum control valve in the engine bay. During normal driving or when you are in neutral that valve is open between a vacuum hose attached to the intake manifold, and a vacuum storage tank under the rear fender. When you shift and activate that control valve it closes the valve between those two hoses and opens a valve between the storage tank hose and another hose that goes to a clutch servo canister mounted on the transmission with a rubber diaphragm inside. The canister has a vacuum-operated arm extending outward that is linked to a clutch arm extending down into the transmission via a hinge pin. When this canister receives vacuum it pulls the clutch arm and operates the clutch so you can shift. All of this happens in less than a second!
The autsotick gearing is actually the exact equivalent of the typical 4 speed manual, only it has just 3 forward gears (Low, Drive 1, and Drive 2, equivalent to 2nd, 3rd, and 4th of the 4 speed, with a torque converter taking the place of 1st gear.) Instead of a flywheel you have a flexible drive plate attached to the front end of the crank, that bolts to the torque converter which sits inside the transmisison bell housing. So when you are installing the engine, you push the engine in up against the torque converter, and then there is a window in the side of the bell housing that you reach through and bolt 4 equally spaced tabs around the torque converter to corresponding threaded holes on the flex plate.
Reason I bring this all up, is because my bug had developed an issue where a small tear occurred in the clutch servo diaphragm making it impossible to hold vacuum and therefore extremely difficult to shift. I needed to remove the clutch servo canister to check it, but as I was knocking out the hinge pin that holds the canister arm to the clutch arm, when it came out it fell right down into the bell housing window. (This happens VERY easily, especially when going to put in those torque converter bolts that hold it to the flex plate. If this happens, yep you have to remove the WHOLE ENGINE to retrieve them.)
So over the last few days, I pulled the engine to retrieve that hinge pin, and then after reinstalling the engine, while putting those bolts back in, I snapped the head off one while tightening it down!!
Any way to drill this sucker out without having to remove the engine yet again??
I don't really know what the point of my post was except to vent...