my junkyard tranny is ... junk ?

[johndallara]

Good news - bad news. recently acquired a junkyard tranny, status unknown. I am going to take it apart, and hopefully salvage some usable parts.

I have not had one of these apart before. After watching Josh's video, i think this tranny may be jammed in gear. I can't get it to shift into neutral, or back and forth between the gears. tapped the shift cylinder it a bit with rubber mallet with a punch in the shifter hole, no luck.

sooo.... is this tranny trashed? if so, what should i do with it? will it still be useful to take it apart for spares.

JD

 

[1993MTXSHO]

I dunno whats wrong but, certainly there are good parts left in it don't trash it

 

[Phoenix]

I'd take it appart ,well at least the case , take some pics of the suspicious parts and post them here. Bizzy or another qualified MTX guru should be able to point you in the right direction.

And if its only some bent part or whatever , you could always just replace that part and have a fully working MTX that you can re-sell or keep it for yourself.

 

[Bizzy]

Never ever ever try to get a trans into gear using a mallet, soft or not, if you can't get it into gear by hand just stop. Things might be messed up before that, but if you force it into a gear, you're just asking to break one of the soft aluminum parts inside.

The last trans I opened up that someone tried to "nudge" it into gear like that ended up having one of the gate bolts broken off. I had to drill and tap the bolt to get it out. That's not an easy thing to do given the bolt's location.

The arms on the gear forks are made of aluminum and they can break. I've seen it happen before. Synchros can pop apart inside. Most of the time they can be put back together and be fine, but if forced, you can bugger them.

Aside from a blown diff problem where the bell housing is damaged, there's not much inside that can't be fixed or replaced either with new or used parts. My advice to you is to stop trying to get it into gear with force, put it up on a bench and open it up to see what the issues are and go from there.

If you need any advice or parts just let me know.

 

[johndallara]

tranny issues

yes, oh MTX tranny guru, I sincerely promise that I will not take a mallet to any parts of the transmission, on my honor ...

seriously, I did tap it gently, to verify that it really was stuck. at this point, I am game for taking it apart using Josh's video as a guide. I will let you know what I find.

thanks for the helpful suggestions as always.

JD

 

[93rev2sev]

Take some pics along the way...

I'd like to see what you find.

 

[johndallara]

tranny issues

Got the bolts & stuff all out (backup-lamp switch, reverse idler shaft retaining bolt, shift fork interlock sleeve retaining pin, loosened the detent plunger retaining srew, removed the fill plug) and took off the 15 case bolts. I used the Josh video method of popping the case, and have freed up the big case pins.

I have achieved about 2" of clearance all around, but the case will not come off. Looking inside, I think some of the shaft assemblies have become unseated from the bottom half of the tranny.

Here is a picture:

http://www.emprepcourse.com/misc/tranny_unseated_geartrain2.jpg




Oh, and buy the way, a little paper-clip sized aluminum rectangular hat piece fell out as I started to remove the case top.

P.S. Bizzy I put the mallet away before I took this picture

Any ideas? I want to get the case apart w/o damaging the components.

JD

 

[Bizzy]

The piece that fell out is probably one of the dogs from a synchronizer.

If you've taken all the 15 case bolts out, the two bolts on the side and loosened the detent bolt, the only thing you can do at this point is finish pulling the case off. If the synchros pop appart, they pop apart. You can put them back together again, just keep track of the parts that come loose. Try to wiggle/rock the case back and forth and pull at the same time.

Edit: The only synchro that is tricky to put back together is the 5th synchro.

 

[johndallara]

tranny issues

Thanks for the help and suggestions. Figured out what the problem was.

The reverse idler bolt was still in place -- it was a little different in position from that shown in the 89 shop manual.



found 3 of the snychronizer dogs, one was wedged at the bottom of the 5th gear cluster -- bet that was the problem.



the rest of the gears, rings and bearings look good to me.



only issue so far is no detent spring found ? might be in the case somewhere, was not attached to the magnet.

onward to disassembly

JD

 

[Bizzy]

Normally when I work on them I have the flat bottom part facing me. If you do that it should make more sense orientation wise. There was nothing different on the 89 trans position wise. Of course, I've never looked at an 89 manual either so I suppose it could be misprinted. Boy wouldn't that be a surprise coming from Ford. NOT!

The detent spring (the one behind the small bolt) should be still in the case along with the detent plunger. You have to take the bolt out in order to retrieve the two of those. It is suggested that you not take the bolt out while removing the case half because it'll spring out of the case and across the room. You need that so if you don't have it let me know and I'll send you one.

As for the dog, it could have gotten there from the shifting problem or it could have gotten there when you took the case apart. It doesn't look like it sat there when the trans was in a running car though. Otherwise it would have scarred the case up. Which synchro did it come from?

Let me know if you need anything else.

 

[93rev2sev]

Great thread...Love the pics...

 

[Mrhappytuzi]

i wish i had my self a tranny to play with

 

[johndallara]

tranny issues

more pics to come -maybe later this week -when I get back to working on this tranny. so far, I got the gear shafts re-seated correctly and can shift well between 1st/2/3/4th. I also have figured out how these work mechanically -- a key step prior to taking it completely apart.

tranny will shift into 5th and reverse, no problem.

several more of those small rectangular pieces appeared, they are off of the main gear shafts. I will need to figure out what they are and how to get them back in position.

Oh, Bizzy by the way, found the detent plunger spring -- didn't realize it was sitting behing the plunger, but of course this makes sense when I saw the dis-assembled shaft. came out no problem w/ pencil magnet.

And I turned the tranny around to normal orientation, much better.
Thanks again for the help.

JD

 

[johndallara]

MTX tranny issues

OK. Got the input and gear shafts out no problem. Following Josh's video and the 89 shop manual, I got the main cluster dis-assembled down to the 3/4 synchronizer.





The small dogs (c.f. the larger ones for 5th) go in this synchronizer -- learned this the hard way, and I got the 3/4 sych working better.

Problem I am having now is with the 5th synchronizer. Can't figure out how to get the big retaining ring off the bottom. It won't budge with my standard retaining ring remover.





Any suggestions ?

JD

 

[johndallara]

tranny issues

OK. Figured out my own problem (forum self-help). Basically, I used a set of small ring pliers, same set that I used to open the smaller rings on the main shaft. Bonehead here did not realize that if you reverse the head on these things, you can use them to force rings closed as well as open rings. This tool was way too small, but I got it done. Need the correct tool ...





Now things are good. Got the 5th synchro re-assembled. Beth, you were right, this was not easy. However, I now know where the 3 (large) synchro dogs go, and they are back in place. Tested it w/the fork, no problem.





Here is the re-assembled cluster:

:woohoo:




I have a few nice videos of the correctly working 5th cluster. Feel much better now that I know where all the little pieces go ... you know, the ones that fell out of the tranny case when I opened it.

Thanks also to Josh for his wonderful video on the tranny rebuild.