Jeff Blais   Sperry Rand Wedge SPD Click on Photo
 

The trip back was rough got caught in a smow storm but no big deal just cost a little extra time, wedges are being worked on, parts machine is pretty rough had to cut the chains out so it would roll dont think i can save the sprockets oh well i wanted it for the jet anyway. good wedge looks ok cleaned and lubed every thing, jack shaft is bent cant figure how that happened but an easy fix, too bad we didnt have that second gear in the trans i think i would have been able to reverse the dog and swap position on gears ive found a few workable
gears from an out board should be able to machine them to work may even be better than original. the jlo is a piece of iron but surprisingly runs good, little tinkering and i fired right up. If i assemble the trans with foward only and install motor i think i could actually run this wedge by thursday. of course family and friends think im insane but kids think its the coolest thing around heres some pics of it when we got in, Havin a good time with the wedge my garage is heated and it makes an interesting project for the winter evenings think Imight even do another one those 4 wheeler scramblers look interesting let me know if you run across one. tke care and keep in touch hope you
After pressure washing i rolled the spd into the garage and began to evaluate the mechanics, this spd appeared to be a well kept machine that broke down
and was left parked. Theses machines are tough to work on if your leaning into the body tub, i was hoping to refurbish the engine and trans and reinstall, the
chains and sprockets looked alright but when i got in there and looked closely there were a few let downs. The clutch shaft is obviously bent and the three
string sprocket is stripped along with the chain being destroyed, the carrier bearing which connects to the transmission and holds the chain tenshoner has
been eaten up by the chain, it looks like the bolts came lose and the tenshoner fell onto the chain this launched it into the shaft. the result is bent clutch shaft
teeth gone off the sprocket, chain destroyed, and the bevel gear in the transmission being trashed i later discovered that the frame was bent, this makes a pretty good case for checking loose bolts when your doing maintainence. All the drive components are mounted on a frame which is held in by two bolts in the rear and the chain adjusting bolts in the front, remove the bolts and the bottom nuts on the adjusters and dissconnect the chains goin to the rear and mid drive wheels and the whole assembly comes out of course you must disconnect the steering and brake cables first. After removing the dirve assembly I could get a close look at what this machine needed, the bearings on the drive sprockets are shot and the clutch shaft and three string sprocket are border line, the frame is bent and some of the holes for the mounting bracket have been elongated, time to put the machine in storage and bring the parts machine into the shop.

As it turned out we had a snow storm and it took me half a day to plow and get the parts machine in then set the heat on defrost, at this point i have
disassembled and inspected the engine then reassembled and bench ran it this thing is LOUD,. The search for transmission gears goes on, but these gears
need to be bought in sets, they are expensive and have to be installed properly or they will self destuct, if you are on a tight budget you might look for a
machine with a good trans. The drive assembly has been removed and while the sprockets show wear I think they will pass, if the parts machine has good bearings and teeth I'll use them. Heres a few pics, I'll include more next time after i strip the parts machine and begin reassembly. Richard has asked me to to place the restoration of this machine on the site and Iam happy to do so I like restoring old machines and welcome emails from any one who shows interest, ive talked to gary harper from N.H. who is a wedge owner and we have agreed to exchange some parts for duplication garys a good guy and knows what he's talkin about, if you go to the owners section and search wedge you'll find about ten owners there. also if you go to mikes garage which is in the links section there is a good sections on wedges. Next time Ill include some pics of the clutches and brakes as they back togeter then reassembly of the drive train. hope you all have a merry christmas
i havent had a lot of time to play with the wedge lateley but i have finished the clutches and jack shaft for the jet drive, the jet was manufactured by berkely who was one of the leaders in the jet world, they used a model 5j5 and were still selling them untill they went under about five years ago, you can no longer get parts for these but i do see the pumps for sale one in a while they were also used on early seadoos and small shallow water boats, this jet only has about 8 parts in it, the bearings and prop are good so it was cleaned and reassembled.

The clutches were made by formsprang and they are still around but mine are in good shape so they werecleaned and reassembled i did find a bad bearing and they can be bought but the price was a little steep so i robbed one from the parts wedge. the transmission is turning out to be a little more of a challenge, Normaly i would machine the dog clutch on some thing like this, but i only have one gear so i thought i
would install gears from an outboard lower end, the problem is that the pinion shaft on the wedge turns counter clockwise and out boards turn clockwise most outboard gears are desighned to disengage if turned backwards there are a few out there that should work ill let you know when i find the right ones too
bad i cant find out who originaly made these gears the trans is complete and in good shape except for the missing gear.

The clutch shaft was bent so i went to the parts wedge and was dissapointed to find that shaft also bent maybe it a weakness in these machines the shaft is not hard to replace its just a lot of work to press everything off and install on the new shaft, most drive shaft rebuilders can sell you the new shaft, they use them on ptos for heavy equipment. im undecided wether to install a pillow bearing to support the shaft of
to use the original wedge bearing. I was hoping to do this wedge in a few months but for some reason everythig on this machine seems to take longer than i plan for, hope i have it done for sping