The Doug Nash Transmission Story

1984

A True Story

Written 2013, and rewritten 12/2019* 2,253 Words

By Howard Yasgar

In 1984, business was good and I was fortunate enough to buy a new Chevrolet Corvette.

This was not my first Corvette.

Several years earlier I had owned a beautiful yellow 1978 Centennial model.

So, in 1984, when I had the opportunity to buy another Corvette, I was anxious to find a similar model like the one I had before, one that had a four-speed manual transmission.

I called several Chevrolet dealers in the South Florida area, but they only had Corvette’s with automatic transmissions.

Now, at the time, my wife Katherine wasn’t too happy about my wanting to get a standard shift transmission, because her clerical office job required her to wear high-heeled shoes, and having to use a standard shift clutch was not going to make it easy for

her to drive the Corvette.

I eventually found a dealer in Fort Lauderdale that had a new 1984 Corvette with a four-speed transmission, and it was on their showroom floor ready to go.

Katherine and I drove to Fort Lauderdale, and there it was, a real beauty, it had a silver interior and silver exterior and it had a four-speed Doug Nash transmission with overdrive.

The salesman told us that 1984 model was a transition year for Corvette and this was the year that Chevrolet was trying out several new types of technology.

He said that the car had all printed circuits in the dashboard, and it had a new style fuel injection system, as well as an electronic ignition system and it also included the four speed Dough Nash manual transmission with overdrive.

I knew buying a car in a year that Chevrolet was changing all their technology is a risky thing to do, as you never knew if they had really worked out all the bugs.

But the car was so beautiful and it was under full warranty, so I bought it.

The very first week that we had the car, we went out for supper at a South Miami restaurant, and I was fortunate enough to get a parking space right by the restaurant’s front door.

About halfway through our meal we heard an annoying car alarm going off outside of the restaurant, and it became apparent that no one was shutting it off.

I could see all the patrons, including us, getting irritated about the noise.

It wasn’t until a waitress opened the restaurants front door to look outside that we realized it was our new Corvette making all the noise.

I got up and I went out and sat in the driver’s seat, and I started pushing every button but the alarm wouldn’t shut off.

It was an embarrassing situation and I was getting frustrated, so I thought my only solution was to start the car up and drive it somewhere where the alarm wouldn’t bother anyone.

Turns out, that was the trick, as soon as I put the key in the ignition and turned it, the alarm shut off, that was our first surprise.

A few weeks later we were down in the Florida Keys, having a drink at the Holiday Isle restaurant in Islamorada.

We had already had few Rumrunners at the outdoor bar and we decided to try their barbecue restaurant called “Ripps Ribs”.

It was a big mistake as their food turned out to be the worst greasy stuff we had ever eaten.

Our new Corvette was parked right outside the front door, so, after eating, we got in the car intending on driving to our condo at Executive Bay that was a few miles up U.S. 1.

Suddenly I felt very sick, so I quickly opened my driver’s side door and I threw up my Ripps Ribs all over the pavement.

As soon as I recovered from that experience , I went to start the car, but it wouldn’t start.

As lousy as I felt, I thought, that’s no problem, since I was a mechanic and I should be able to quickly diagnose and fix the no starting problem.

So, I opened my driver’s side door to get out of the car, but I couldn’t get out, because that was where I had just thrown up.

Fortunately, I had a Miami Herald newspaper in the car, so I spread it out on the ground covering the mess I had made.

I got out of the car and opened the Corvette’s hood.

I was looking for something I was familiar with like a carburetor or a distributor or any kind of linkage that I could jiggle around and adjust.

Well, this was the first time I had really looked closely at the new Chevrolet 350 cubic inch crossfire fuel injected engine, and there was nothing there for me to jiggle.

For that matter there was nothing to see, as the engine had a plastic shroud over it, and I couldn’t even figure out how to remove it.

At that moment I realized I would never be able to repair that Corvette.

I looked and looked but I didn’t even recognize anything on the engine, it was too high tech.

We were fortunate to be able to hitch a ride to our condo, and in the morning I called the Chevrolet dealer in Miami.

They were nice about it, they said that Corvette had an extraordinary number of electronic ignition problems on the 1984 models, but not to worry, it was all covered by my warranty.

The next day they came to the Keys and towed the vehicle to Miami.

When we went to pick up the car, we were assured that the problem had been solved.

And they were right, the car ran good for more than a year.

One day we were driving up US 1 to Miami and the car just stopped, so I coasted to the side of the road and onto the grass.

This time Katherine and I had to hitchhike home to Miami.

The car was again repaired under warranty, but now it was getting near the end of the warranty.

Once the Corvette was out of warranty, I started to get very nervous.

I had heard lots of horror stories about problems with all the 1984 Corvettes

I was told that if a dashboard gauge went bad, it couldn’t be easily fixed, because they were all printed circuits. That meant the whole dashboard needed to be replaced at some crazy astronomical cost.

Well, my worst fears came to pass about a year after the Corvette’s warranty ran out.

The four speed Doug Nash transmission started to make a whining noise and the faster I went, the louder it got.

I called the customer service representative at our local Chevrolet agency and he said the only way they would fix the car was by changing the entire transmission for only $2400.00 plus the labor to do it was an additional $2400.00.

Well, I was a pretty good mechanic, and I certainly wasn’t going to pay anyone $5000.00 to replace my transmission.

At the time I was in the automotive electrical parts rebuilding business myself, so I knew the Doug Nash transmission could probably be rebuilt by someone in the transmission rebuilding business in Miami.

So, I started making calls around town.

A week later, after I had heard all the crazy prices that various transmission people

wanted, I decided that I would attempt to repair it myself in my own shop.

I had a local gas station remove the transmission for me.

Once it was removed, they brought the entire transmission over to my shop, and I looked over the situation.

The first thing I saw was the name “Doug Nash”, and I wondered what the hell did someone like Doug Nash, a drag racer from the 1960’s have to do with my four-speed overdrive Corvette transmission.

I then concluded the transmission was a strange looking thing, and with the overdrive unit attached to the back of it, it didn’t look like any manual transmission that I had ever seen before.

Next, me and the 25 mechanics I employed (Automotive electrical mechanics) looked at the transmission for two days before any of us got the nerve to do anything.

After a few days I had received official advice in both English and Spanish from everyone, and the one thing every one of us agreed on was that we never saw anything like it before, and who the hell was Doug Nash, they knew he wasn’t a Cuban.

I knew that the smart thing to do would be to get a shop manual on the transmission and read it before I did anything, but I was a big boy and I didn’t get a manual.

It just didn’t look all that complicated. So, I just started disassembling it, like you would disassemble any other transmission.

It turned out very easy, as soon as we separated the overdrive unit from the main transmission., I found the culprit. It was a very thin roller bearing. The bearing was burnt blue, so I was sure it was the source of the noise.

I got on the phone and called several Miami bearing suppliers. Finally at an aircraft bearing supplier I found one for $185.00.

I told them that the bearing was for a car transmission not an airplane, I wasn’t going to pay $185.00.

I went to my office to think about my next move. Since I already had the transmission mostly disassembled, I thought, I might just as well take apart the overdrive unit to see if there were any other bearings that were bad.

It would be terrible if I put the whole overdrive transmission back together, only to find out there was another bad bearing in it, so it was better to be safe than sorry.

This is the part when I really should have read a Doug Nash transmission manual first, I don’t remember exactly what happened, but the next thing I knew I had big springs and shims popping out and flying all over the place.

There were pieces flying everywhere. Some shims and springs rolled under shelving and machinery we had in the shop.

Several of my mechanics were watching me, and I could tell by looking at their faces, they all thought that this was the end, I was never going to put the Doug Nash transmission back together again.

I must admit I was a little depressed, but all was not lost, I knew that I could call this Doug Nash guy up, whoever the hell he was, and I could order a repair manual from him.

So, I went and found the telephone number for Doug Nash Engineering, which was not an easy task, as we didn’t have Google back then.

I called, and very nice fellow answered the phone.

Yes, he said, this was the Doug Nash Engineering Company, and yes this was the very factory where they had produced the 4+3 overdrive transmission for the 1984 Chevrolet Corvette.

I don’t remember exactly where the fellow said he was located I think it was Brentwood Tennessee.

Anyway, he was very patient with me and listened to my entire tale of woe, as I explained my entire situation to him, and then I asked him if I could buy a transmission shop manual.

The fellow calmly said to me, “Sir, I am standing behind my desk in two inches of water and there is no roof on our building”.

No roof on the building? I said, “That’s right he said, our company was hit by a tornado and it took the roof off the building”.

I was stunned, does that mean you are out of the transmission business, and I am out of luck, I asked?

“Yes and no, he said, we sold our whole transmission business to Richmond Gear Co,

and perhaps you can call them, because they already came here and got all our stuff”.

He then told me the phone number of Richmond gear and told me who the guy was to ask for.

I called the Richmond Gear Company, and by luck got the right guy first call.

“Yes, he said, we bought out Doug Nash Transmission Company, and we also bought out six other companies at the same time”.

He said, “Richmond gear was on an acquisition binge and they were buying out other companies right and left”.

“He said Richmond gear had bought out so many companies that he never even had the time to inventory anything, and everything from all the different companies was just lying in big piles on the warehouse floor”.

“He also said it would take a miracle to find anything”, so I was ready to cry, and I told him I needed a miracle.

The fellow obviously saw I was distraught, and “He said he would go to the Doug Nash parts pile in the morning and look to see if any shop manuals or bearings were laying around anywhere”.

The next afternoon he called me back. “No, there were no shop manuals, but he said he saw a complete transmission and overdrive unit laying there at the foot of the pile, and it was the exact part number that I needed”. I asked him how much he wanted for it, and I was waiting for him to give me some astronomical price like $5000.00.

“He said, how about $375.00”.

I almost fell off my chair. Please ship it COD today I said.

Well, he did ship it and he also put an extra ball bearing in the package at no charge. The next week, my friend at the corner gas station installed the transmission and the car ran fine.

After driving around for a while, to make sure the transmission worked, I decided to store it for the evening in the enclosed yard of one of our warehouses. The yard had a six-foot concrete wall with concertina wire all along the top.

The next day, when I went to get the car, I found that someone had attempted to break into it.

They broke the windshield, and then tried to remove the Bose radio with a tire iron. The car was a mess with all the broken glass and damage they had done to the dashboard trying to get the radio out.

(See the Crooked Chevrolet Dealer Story), to find out what happened next.