22 replies to this topic

[Jim Drago]

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. 

correct on all accounts! And Funny. I never even bother with claims either.. waste of time

[Tom Ghan]

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.

+1. The hidden secrets of the shipping industry. And if you aren't a large shipper- spending thousands every month- then you likely will not ever see of hear from your sale rep.
For us individuals shipping, to avoid paying rediculous list rates, many companies allow their employees to ship personal packages on the companies account. Another option is if your friend has an account, you can bill his account and get his discount. No sense in paying any more that you have to.

[t.south]

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).

 

I did this (5-R) after leaving a breaker bar on the crank pulley while doing a cam timing check, and subsequently starting the car.