22 replies to this topic

[SaulSpeedwell]

Props to an anonymous SM-er from Washington state for this advancement of the state-of-the-art!!!

http://youtu.be/rzKvo3apxyo

[Keith Andrews]

Very nice!

[Jim Drago]

Your going to find out more often than not, the transmission will arrive damaged and locked in gear. We used to try and send our rebuilt transmission UPS, packed better than that and we had about 50 % failure rate.. I only send on a pallet now. Save yourself some problems and spend the money and put on a pallett to return

[SaulSpeedwell]

Your going to find out more often than not, the transmission will arrive damaged and locked in gear. We used to try and send our rebuilt transmission UPS, packed better than that and we had about 50 % failure rate.. I only send on a pallet now. Save yourself some problems and spend the money and put on a pallett to return

Dumb question, but is that with a shifter installed? I know UPS can ruin almost anything, but I'm trying to figure out how they could lock a trans in gear short of impaling it with a forklift.

[Jim Drago]

No shifter, all I can think is they drop directly on tail housing side of box? Had it happen several times. I can ask my guy tomorrow what actually happened. I havent shipped that way in about three years.

[Ron Alan]

$60 ups...$40 home depot supplies and how much time??

[Tom Neel]

Agree with Jim...We stopped shipping trannys through ups,fed ex ground or dhl to save a few dollars on shipping since most would get to the customer damaged...It's easy to drop a 85 pound box on a corner and damage the tailhousing...We only ship them in a box on a pallet with shifter removed...have never had one damaged since....

[Marc Cefalo]

Same here. All transmissions have to go on a pallet. While we never had close to a fifty percent damage rate, the aggravation of having a damaged gearbox makes shipping on a pallet a necessity.

[SaulSpeedwell]

Well, it sounds like we got lucky - this is the first one I've ever received this way.

$60 ups...$40 home depot supplies and how much time??

Look, I'm not going to defend what several people are suggesting has proven to be a bad idea, but the savings being significantly more than $40, combined with reusing the packaging multiple times, makes this an attractive concept if it can be made to work reliably. Palleting (and dealing with freight companies) isn't easy or time-free for a lot of people compared to handsawing some pink foam, taping boxes together, and dropping it off at the UPS Store.

It may take a little wood, a little more structure, more or different padding, and an understanding of what truly caused the problems other folks had - but I don't see any reason the concept can't be made to work.

The other option I've used successfully is Greyhound - but this has the hassle of having to drop off and pick up at the Greyhound station.

[LarryKing]

Related trick - I recently discovered that when shipping a motor if you list the contents as "auto parts" instead of "engine" or "motor" it cost considerably less to ship.

[Glenn]

Related trick - I recently discovered that when shipping a motor if you list the contents as "auto parts" instead of "engine" or "motor" it cost considerably less to ship.

Does that comply with the "spirit" of the UPS rules.......

[LarryKing]

[SaulSpeedwell]

Here is a sturdier, more involved, 113 lb version that made it from OH to NY for $37.

 

Presumably the customer will reuse the box, which will help ease the pain of the time and cost to construct it.  It could also be a good way to store a spare trans in the trailer? 

 

http://youtu.be/3sXes6kcuWk

[SaulSpeedwell]

Your going to find out more often than not, the transmission will arrive damaged and locked in gear.

 

Forgot about this part of the discussion until seeing it again - I thought about it some, and I now ship transmissions pre-shifted into 4th gear.  If the trans is already in 4th, the interlock pins will keep 1-2 or 5-R from "inertia shifting" during the UPS Forklift Olympics.  If the trans "inertia shifts" into 1, 2, 5, or R while the shifter extension sits still, then the box will indeed be stuck in gear.  This is a kissing cousin of how boxes get stuck in gear on track, where one of the gears "ricochets" into a (usually higher) gear, leaving the shifter extension trapped in the wrong shift selector.  (This being the failure mode, it is usually fixable by doing the screw driver trick through the R and/or N switch holes. 

 

So, if you pre-shift the trans into 3rd or 4th, it would take 2 big knocks to jam the shifter extension- one to knock 3-4 back into Neutral, and a second knock sending the 1-2 or 5-R guts flying to their endpoint.  I pick 4th based on a theory that transmissions want to land bellhousing down, and if they land tailshaft down, we are probably in deep trouble anyway.

 

(In any case, nobody should ever be shipping a trans with the shifter installed, so all this talk is referring to the internal shifter extension that is actuated by the actual shifter with the knob).

[RazerX]

Which carrier was used to ship that for $37?

[Jim Boemler]

I shipped some non-SM auto parts a while back, and built a nice wooden box to hold them.  At the UPS counter I had to bend over and take it in the shorts.  Turns out that UPS has separate rates for a "box" and a "crate", even at the same size and weight.  The difference was purely in the outer material.  Had I gone back home and covered my "crate" with cardboard, I could have saved almost half the shipping cost.  It left a really bad tastein my mouth about UPS, dunno if the others do likewise or not.

[SaulSpeedwell]

Which carrier was used to ship that for $37?

UPS, commercial addresses at both ends.

[Tom Ghan]

I shipped some non-SM auto parts a while back, and built a nice wooden box to hold them. At the UPS counter I had to bend over and take it in the shorts. Turns out that UPS has separate rates for a "box" and a "crate", even at the same size and weight. The difference was purely in the outer material. Had I gone back home and covered my "crate" with cardboard, I could have saved almost half the shipping cost. It left a really bad tastein my mouth about UPS, dunno if the others do likewise or not.

FedEx has a 'non standard' packaging fee; Wood crates tear up the automatic sort belts and must be hand walked through the sorting facilities.
If you don't have an account, then 'counter rates' are actually higher than list rates'

[Jim Boemler]

Well, at least that sounds like some sort of explanation -- much better than the UPS dwebe could give me.  Thanks, Tom.

[Tom Sager]

A crate like the one pictured can work for UPS or Fedex but there is still risk.  For UPS and Fedex, there is no such thing as the top or bottom of a package.  During shipment, every package is on and off a minimum of 3 trucks (or a rail car) and any which end or side may be up or down during that time and heavy stuff gets dropped, tossed, rolled and placed at the bottom of trucks with hundreds of pounds of other packages on top.  Oh, and if you insure your transmission and it's damaged in shipment by either of these companies, forget about getting your claim paid.  They don't give a rats ass about your stuff or your problem and no matter how you pack it the claims folks will tell you it was "insufficient".  

 

With a truck shipment you have a better chance of the transmission staying upright but these folks are paid to fill trucks top to bottom so if you think your transmission is sitting on a pallet on the floor of the truck with nothing on top, you might be in for a surprise.  More likely it will be teetering atop a pallet of something else.  That and the claims departments of the LTL carriers are not actually staffed.  Your faxed claim form is received by a fax machine which hasn't had any paper or toner in it for years.  

 

I like the crate approach regardless of how it's shipped.  Protect yourself.  Nobody else gives a shyt.