Titusville - The transmission arrives!

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder! It's a beautiful sight, the new transmission!

I was starting to get worried about the transmission when I got a call from the office that it arrived! I had everyone on lookout for a heavy box from Europe. The box was bigger than I expected. I guess they really wanted to provide multiple layers of protection for the transmission. The outside box was huge and barely fit in the dock cart.

The box inside the box, getting closer

Once on the dock I started to unpack. The exterior box was just a cushion for the interior box that actually housed the transmission. It had a plainly printed arrow that was horizontal relative to how the box sat. Oh well, I guess it really didn't matter since it had no oil in it. The lubrication is added after the transmission is installed.

Finally, the transmission itself

I called the mechanic and he's due over on Thursday at 8:30 am to begin the installation of both the transmission and the aft oil seal which I already have. The entire process should not take more than 5 hours, hopefully less. Once that is done we'll pack and leave for points north.

I picked up the rental car today, a  Hyundai Sonata. It's a great car for long distance trips and usually gets around 40 miles/gal. Now I would like to explain that in renting Florida cars I carefully examined all the particulars and then realized that the windshield washer fluid was not protected to below freezing. I would like to say I got to this conclusion through deductive reason but nothing could be further from the truth! In actuality, I rented a car one year and in driving north discovered that when I used the window washing option, the window was then covered in solid ice! Humm, something is not right here. Eventually I concluded that in Florida there is no need of freeze resistant window washing fluid so they just put in plain water or perhaps water with a little soap, not good for trips north. So armed with memory of a bad trip north last year, I drained all the fluid (lots of window washing) and replenished the reservoir with fluid good to 0 F! In my experience, I only learn by doing the wrong thing and then correcting the problem on the next try. All that led to my list of "tips" in negotiating the ICW and my slogan of, "I make all the mistakes first so you don't have to!"