Well I had an hour this morning so I pulled the stack from the tranny. I got it on the bench and it shifts solid into all gears except 4th (not a surprise) , only gets part way in. I also heard a clicking or something when I turned the shaft and the gears spun, like a loose piece of metal flopping around in there, is this normal?

So What do I do now?

Loose clicky noises are normal, it's the stop blocks and brake bands moving around. As far as not going into 4th, the stack will have to come apart. It's probably either the dog teeth, the slider, or the synchro/stop blocks/brake bands. It's possible it's the slider hub, but I doubt it.

The easy solution is to send the stack to Dr. Evil.

I agree with Bondo

You may have a bad intermediate plate bearing, also.

Pics help

I would've had pics, but my stepmom took the digital with her for her weekend trip . I've got things to do the next few days , but monday I'll take the stack apart and get some pics up.

Can I take just the top shaft apart and leave the bottom, or is it a total deal?

You may be able to remove 4th and 5th off of the top shaft with little problem. Going past that interferes with the gears and such on the lower shaft and would require both to be removed or at least loosened. Just be careful and dont force things too much. You can easily destroy the $130-150 upper bearing in the plate.

YIKES!

Well I've been working on this in a couple 15 min sessions the last few days. I have the castletated nut, the other nut (on the drive shaft) and the bolt (pinion shaft) off. Can I softly hammer the drive shaft out and work on it or do I have to go the Haynes route and totally dismantle everything?

Why did you remove the castlated nut? I fear that large $$ damage is in your future. You should only need to remove the nut on the front of the gear stack and then slide the 5th, 4/5 slider and 4th gears out to inspect the gears dog teeth and bands. Under no circumstances should you hammer the rear of the shaft! IT will mushroom and you will be screwed and be asking me for another shaft. Then you WILL have to disassemble the whole stack to replace it. To remove the shaft from 1st gear you need to use a press.

This is what to do for 4th and 5th removal:
- Flatten #8
- remove #7
- Carefully remove #9
- 10-16 will come off

11, 14 and 16 are the parts to inspect.

When you are done and reassemble it, you will need to align the shift forks correctly.

I'll put those bits back in. As far as #9, how do I remove that? It doesnt slide off, and I dont have a bearing puller that's a foot long.

You should notice that #11 has two grooves in it that go under the washer (#10). You can work a screwdriver or other flat hard implement into this spot and it will force the washer to push the bearing off. It will help greatly to soak the bearing/shaft junction with some PB blaster and let it sit for a while.

I dont have, or know, what PB blaster is. Is that another type of WD-40 kind of stuff?

Sort of. You can get it everywhere, even Wal-mart. It loosens things up. WD-40 is not adequate enough for the job.

I don't think this guy should be tearing apart his transaxle...

This requires specialized tools and knowledge. Just send it to the Evil guy!

If you work on cars and don't know what PB blaster is, I don't believe you work on cars.

ouch

and here's a couple pics, I got the washer and bearing off, now i'm working on 4th/5th gears, I have a little play (1/8"). But I'm not forcing the issue too much (being careful). As far as clearance, I dont see how I can take them off without interfering with the gears on the pinion shaft.

Alright, I got the gears off. I slid the bearings out first and then that left enough space inside the gear to wiggle/tilt it and get it out.

Here's some pics. 5th gear first, then the teeth with the 4th gear side on top, 5th on bottom (looking kind of worn on 4th side, big surprise)

and 4th gear

I have rebuilt a few T5 Mustang 5-speeds and from what limited experiance I have the gears look good. The little points are nice and sharp and not rounded over. Are you sure the problem wasn't with the shift linkage?

Well I couldnt get it into 4th at the tranny (where the selector fork goes in) and then with the stack out, it wont slot (and more importantly 'lock' into 4th gear) like all the others.

First, why are your gear stacks so dry? When I first pull them they are usually really wet.

Second, on the slider, which end was facing 4th? With a caliper, measure the synchro band in several places. What is your measurement?

If it is too large something has happened to it and it won't fit inside the slider. I had something like this happen to 5th gear in a 915 box. One of my anchor blocks moved causing the synchronizer ring to be too large. (That's when I found my worn Pinion gear....)

The picture of the slider, the 4th gear side is the upper (in the pic) teeth, and they are pretty worn out. I'll do some calipering tonight after dinner.

Also, the stack is dry cause it's taken me a week to get from draining the tranny to taking off those gears.

I need a better picture of the slider. It almost looks as if the splines have mushroomed or been smeared over not allowing the dog teeth of the gear to engage the slider.

Can you push the slider onto the dog teeth?

Sometimes the splines can be cleaned up with the careful use of a file but this can be short lived. It is probably best to replace the slider, but like I said, I would need a better picture of the slider to give you a meaningful suggestion.

The slider teeth are worn down and smeared on the 4th gear side and it doesnt fully engage when on the stack which could be the teeth not having enough room.

I also checked the syncho ring OD, and it's about 3" within the tolerance given in the Haynes manual.

Wow, its interesting that the synchro band and dog teeth are not in as bad a shape as your slider. If you want a cheaper used one I probably have one. Also, check the blocks and bands inside of 4th gear. The mushrooming is what probably prevented you from 4th engagement. Let me know on the part.

How do you get inside 4th gear? ? As far as the used slider, I'm interested (I'm in college = poor ) as long as the price is low enough to not buy new.

Alright, so I'm getting a new slider from Dr Evil , there's just a couple other questions:

1. How do I get into 4th gear to make sure nothing is wrong inside there either?

2. I noticed when I took off the stack there were two brown gaskets (between stack and case) and one of them was mangled in the process. Do I need a new one or two or what?

3. Start thinking about it now , but later when I get the stack all back together, how, where, what do I align the shift forks and such so that it works when I have it all back together in the car.

2. measure the thickness of each of them in a place where they were not crushed. There are numerous places where there is a slot or a hole against the gasket. Replace the old gaskets with equivalent thickness of new gaskets so that the pinion depth is unchanged.

3. The Haynes manual has a good writeup of how to align the shift forks. It will be much easier with an alignment jig to hold the rods in place.

Sounds like you should be reading up on this much more before you proceed. The gaskets are important and you need to measure them exactly as just described. You will need some sort of precision measuring micrometer or calipers to get this dimension right. I do have some of these gaskets and can send you some if you let me know what the dimension is.

As for aligning the forks, it will be very difficult to do this right without a jig. You need to make sure the slider, fork, and rod are all aligned in their perspective dimensions. As a first timer, this may be a bit beyond you without the specific tool. I would not really attempt this without the tool and I have rebuilt quite a few of these boxes.

Well I took apart the 4th gear and everything looked alright, no broken blocks or brake bands, though it was a bitch to get all that spring-loaded stuff back together . As for the gasket... hold on, I'll measure right now....

both are brown and look to be about .005-.006 inches. One is fine and still on the tranny case and the other is mangled = new one. I'll check tomorrow morning around the local shops to see if they have one, if not, I'll hit you up.

As for aligning the forks, I'll just have to get the dimensions and do a lot of until it's right.

If you can get an old trans case, you can cut it up to make the jig. All you need is the part that the shafts and shift rods fit in to hold them in the right place.

So without the jig/cut up trans case, I just have to align as best I can and then do a lot of install and check ?

Dr, please help my old brain out. what gear must be engaged to gain enough clearance to reinstall the gear stack into the sideshift tranny case?

You have to have a gear engaged? Whenever I installed my stack (multiple times ) I didnt have it in gear, but I also had the selector fork out too...

Also, I called around and it looks like if I want the single brown gasket I have to get it from the porsche stealership who gets it from atlanta (5-7 days) and they have thicknesses .1 , .15 , and .2 mm and my two .005 inch gaskets come to .254 mm. Which one(s) do I need?

Or should I just spring the extra cash for the pelican seal and gasket set and replace everything?

sww914,
All the info is in my tranny link, but I will save you the time and tell you that 5th needs to be selected (the how to do it easy way is in the link). With the shift fork and rod out you dont have to select it because it isnt there to hit the case on install.

As for the gaskets, you need to use multiple ones equaling the approximate thickness; .1 + .15 = .25mm
How much do they want for them? I may have the sizes you need in stock.

They were different prices, but something like $1.50 (the .1 mm) to like $7 (for the .2) I think, if I remember correctly

Why not just buy 2x .1mm for $3 instead of 1x .2mm for $7? Pricing on those seems retarded to me

Yeah, I'm not the biggest fan of the 'stealership'. I had to replace the pushrod tube o-rings and they overcharged me for like 7 of the wrong thing... so I went to pelican and got the whole set of the right thing for less.

You have any in stock and for how much?

And what is this about the pinion depth? Obviously it's important if we're dealing with fractions of mm's, but what is it we're talking about? Just my Mechanical Engineering curiousity itch needing to be scratched.

Depth of the pinion dictates the contact relationship between pinion head gear and the diff ring gear. If this dimension is off you can imagine how this will be noisy, and lead to wear and destruction of these parts. I will see what I have in stock for the gaskets.

I have .24, .17, .16 and several .15mm gaskets. Nothing that = .25, but the .24 should be just fine.

How much you want and I could have the money out in the PM mail?

Alright I put the tranny and all back together a couple days ago, but I hadn't had the teener out until this morning for a quick shakedown and I'll have to say....

4TH GEAR IS WORKING!

First of all I'd like to thank all that made this possible, namely Dr. Evil for the supply of parts and useful knowledge.

Now it's time to drive!

Watch for a front seal leak after all of that trauma. Glad it is working