Lost Reverse in MTX - One Possible Solution

[Philthy]

So I tore everything back apart yesterday and snapped some photos.

So far all looks good.



High Res: http://www.abusivemotorsports.com/troy/SHO/Tranny/CIMG1537.JPG

Everything looked good with the revers pawl and shift gate.



High Res: http://www.abusivemotorsports.com/troy/SHO/Tranny/CIMG1541.JPG

Can't really tell, but I think this here whizbang is causing my grief.



High Res:http://www.abusivemotorsports.com/troy/SHO/Tranny/CIMG1540.JPG

Once it was out of the tranny, the synchro clippy things fell out. I guess it's good I couldn't engage reverse because I think these would have flown off into the gear cluster and caused me some real problems.



High Res:
http://www.abusivemotorsports.com/troy/SHO/Tranny/CIMG1545.JPG

I thought this was a 5th gear thingus but apparently 5th and reverse are somewhat linked up. and according to http://www.shoforum.com/showthread.php?t=82789 they share a syncro. Welp, 5th gear was kinda "ganky" and I think this explains it.



High Res:http://www.abusivemotorsports.com/troy/SHO/Tranny/CIMG1550.JPG

I'm pretty sure this is what it is supposed to look like. Hopefully I get some positive validation for my gut feelings 'cause I'd like to get the tranny back together tonight and the car back together on Friday.

Symptoms were: Reverse would not engage, shifter would not go into reverse slot, linkage checked out fine, 5th gear had slight grind.

 

[Bizzy]

Yep, I think that 5th synchro whiz-bang is what your problem was. I will make sure I add whiz-bang to my list of cool words to use from now on. Normally I think of a pinion shaft when I think of "whiz-bangs", but it's all good.

Let me know if you need anything.

Edit: I see your trans has been open before. How long ago and who did the work?

 

[Phoenix]

Thats really good to know , this is my exact problem. Thanks bud

 

[AREA 91]

This would be a great time to change the roll pins for the differential.

 

[Mike93]

Can you possibly snap some pics of what the trans looks like (with the case off) when looking at the drain plug area when viewed from the front of the car? The reason I ask is there is a bolt that is near the plug that has something to do with reverse, which I am having some issue with...more info here http://www.shoforum.com/showthread.php?t=71352

If I could see a pic of what I should be looking for that would be HUGE

 

[Philthy]

Luckily I snapped some other pics during disassembly, cause now everything is laying on a cart taped down under some rags.

Here's a pic swiped from someone here (ISHODU.) The red arrow is an 8mm bolt that holds in a bullet and spring. If you remove that one, when you pull the tranny apart they bullet shoots across your garage and the spring finds its way into the cracks between the cement. It's physics, you can't argue with it.

The yellow arrow points at a 13mm bolt that holds the reverse idler gear shaft.

The blue arrow points at what some people use as a drain plug, it's also circled in black. It's a 13mm bolt that locates the fork interlock sleve. I guess that's the thing that gets all futzed up if you have it out and you shift the tranny, move the gears, breathe on it wrong.



Here's the inside view with the same arrows pointing at the same stuff.



Area 91, new roll pins are soooo last week.



And Bizzy, between the write up and the confirmation, you've given me way more than I could ask. I opened up the tranny a few months ago to do the diff reinforcement. I put it back together and found a thrust washer I left out. So I took it apart, put the thrust washer in and put it all back together. Then it failed the "shake it around and listen for jiggly bits" test, so I took it back apart and found the BB that fell into the bottom. I cleaned all the blue RTV off and put it back together, this time using red anaerobic RTV istead of the evil blue stuff and then reverse lasted three days or so. So it was off with the subframe and out with the tranny.

 

[Phoenix]

+1 on the welded Diff.

 

[Philthy]

Since everything was all apart I decided to lighten the flywheel by having the weight ridge removed. Prior to machining, it weighed just under 21 pounds on the machinist's scale. $35 and one day later I picked it up and he said it was a pound and a half lighter. I got it home and lo and behold



Maybe if the lip was taken all the way down, another half pound could come off, but I think that's pushing it.



Either way, I not sure that 2.5 pounds is worth it, but they say the best place to loose 100 lbs is to loose 1 ounce in 1600 places. Still does nothing for the fact that I'm 40 pounds overweight.

 

[Philthy]

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Transmissions suck.

 

[Philthy]

In my anger I forgot that I weighed my clutch disk and pressure plate. Also 18.5 pounds. How serendipitous.



I have an appointment with a transmission doctor I know Tuesday night.

Just in case anyone is still following the thread, I put everything back together after piecing together the 5th gear synchro and had almost the exact same problem, except I was able to get a little "farther" into reverse. It seems something has gone catawampus around the "Fork Interlock Sleeve." The sleeve was hitting the 3/4 and the 5/R fork at the same time. 1st through 4th still worked well, 5th was finicky and Reverse was a no go. After much futzing I was able to engage reverse with the case off. I set everything back to neutral, put the case back on and back to the same problem.

There must be some magic about where to set the linkage when you put the case on. I'll try to snap more pics and report back Wednesday. Maybe instead of a nice Turkey dinner, my wife will cook me up a working tranny.

 

[TimboSHO]

Where did you get that angle iron? Did you have it made specifically for this purpose, or can it be bought somewhere? That is how we reinforce Chrysler diffs at our shop (there is a kit) and I thought something for the SHO would be awesome! Let me know!

 

[Philthy]

I got it from my garbage can full of scrap metal. I believe it began life as a bed frame, but I cut it up to become something else. Then I cut it up some more to become custom SHO differential reinforcements. They required some "motivation" from the hammer, the vice and the bench grinder. Also, I'm not entirely sure what they make bed frames out of, but the Sawzall didn't touch it. I had to cut it with the angle grinder and a cut off wheel. If it matters, I think its about 1 inch by 3/16ths angle.

Afterward it was TIGed to the diff rivets.

 

[Bizzy]

The only thing I worry about is the balancing. Other than that it looks like a pretty spiffy idea.

 

[Lightning]

Newbie question:

Are these the diff pins that are thrown when you 'get spirited' with the clutch?

And, did you weld the pins to the angle?

 

[Philthy]

They are the pins that go kapow in the night. I did not weld them to the pins, just to the rivets. If I had a do over, and I was going to go the same route, I would also weld them to the pins. However, I would more likely just hunt down a sleeve to go over the pins. That's what we do with Suzuki Samurai differentials when 5.12 ring and pinions are installed. And I believe the angle iron idea came to me after seeing the Mopar kit on TurboMinivan.com.

Bizzy, I worry about balance too. I suspect it will be fine, the difference between the pieces can't be more than an ounce total, but I'll let everyone know if it blows itself up.

And after an few hours with a tranny guy (a guy who fixes transmissions, not a man who wears women's clothes, though what he does in his spare time is really none of my business) the transmission seems to be back to normal.

There were a few problems I created and one assembly trick.

When I first put the transmission back together, I flipped the 5th/Reverse collar backwards. The angled splines are supposed to point at the synchro and 5th gear. Since mine was upside down, the flat spline was engaging 5th gear. This caused the edge of the splines to get buggered up every time I went into 5th. I also think it's what allowed the dogs (parts list calls it the "hub insert") to fly out of the hub.



If you check out the high res

http://www.abusivemotorsports.com/troy/SHO/Tranny/CIMG1543.JPG

you can see how the collar is upside down. Anyway, after the the splines got jacked, they wouldn't slide down any and that was stopping me from grabbing reverse. After spending much time with the file, the collar slides all over the hub. Problems one and two down.

Then we found during assembly, if you put the tranny in 4th gear as you slide the case on, it makes things much easier. I kept ending up in some sort of "not a gear" and the tranny wouldn't shift well. When I looked into the 8mm bolt hole (red arrow in above pics) I could see I was in not on the neutral detent. After putting the case back on while in 4th, it dropped down to the neutral detent and everything shifted like butter.

 

[Phoenix]

Awesome pics and description , it's probably that what happened to mine. Will open it up soon.

 

[Brook24v]

Great thread. Lots of info.

 

[Philthy]

I got everything back together over the weekend and I am indeed having all gears. One thing I noticed while the tranny was on the bench though. When everything was put together wrong, with the tranny in neutral, if I spun the input shaft, the carrier would turn. I could stop it with my fingers, so I thought it was just normal friction. After getting it put back together by a professional, when in neutral, if you spin the input shaft, the carrier doesn't spin.

I also noticed a few tips for installation. The only ones I still remember are:

The Harbor Freight Transmssion Adapter for the floor jack (part number 95640) works marginally OK. It only has one tilt adjustment and the base lifts the transmission awfuly high. Mine actually has no tilt adjust, though, I think I bought it broken. It was on sale for $39.99 at my store, though I think if I take it back, I will probably get http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=3185 as it is on sale for $99.99 right now.

My quadrant spring overcame the ratcheting mechanism when I loosened the clutch cable. I took a long srew driver and pushed on the cable holder to loosen the cable, then Vice Gripped it to a metal dash support. Worked very well and made reattaching the cable super easy.

The fill plug is just 3/4 pipe thread IIRC. I bought a 3/4 by 1/2 barbed fitting and a length of 1/2" clear tubing. Plopped a funnel on the other end and filling the tranny with 3.1 quarts of Autozone's cheapest ATF was easy. After a couple more miles, it will make refilling it with Mobil 1 ATF just as easy.

The clip for the speedometer cable is stupid and now optional. I placed mine in my center console. If my speedo quits working, we'll all know why.

There were a couple more things I thought "Hey, I need to remeber that" but I forgot them. If they come back, I'll keep adding them in.

 

[zak]

The speedo cable can contain trans fluid if it leaks past the seal - if the cable housing comes off, its quite near the rear header . . .

 

[93silverbulletSH0]

Good to hear everything is working again Did the transmission doctor say what the problem was, or what he did?