C. Ludwig
08-08-2003, 04:57 PM
Had a tranny die on me a couple months back. It was a year old rebuild built by a local shop. It was an S5 or 89-92 trans. Was silky smooth but decided to eat fourth gear. I decided to disassemble it and do my own rebuild figuring it can't be too hard. First thing I noticed was that fourth gear only meshed about half the gear surface. The gears were very poorly aligned and the wear pattern showed it had been that way since the start. No wonder it broke I thought. Matter of fact none of the gears aligned properly. The most obvious fault was the bearings on the output shaft and the back of the counter shaft. The output bearing was setting half way outside the case and the counter bearing was half inside the case. At first I was mad because this was obviously not right. But upon further inspection of three more similar Mazda trannys (one 1st and 2nd gen trans and one from a Courier pickup which is visually identical for practical purposes) it was confirmed that all four, two of which were factory built all had this characteristic. I'm about to start building a new box and have ordered all the shims offered but from my measurements it doesn't appear I'll be able to make everything line up with the shims offered by Mazda. What gives?
Chris
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Chris Ludwig
08 ITS RX7 CenDiv
Chris
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Chris Ludwig
08 ITS RX7 CenDiv