How to tell if First gear teeth are Damaged?

[Chevyguy]

I finally spent the 35 min necessary to pull open my "good" broken T-5 that was popping out of first gear. This was a nice unit built with a good quality 2.95 first gear set and a billet cluster support, full steel input shaft bearing retainer and tube.



Anyhow the builder told me to replace the quadrant before installing the trans, and to check/replace motor mounts and center motor.

Yeah yeah, it's all good

6 months later I noticed the motor mounts were completely shot, so I got a set of convertible mounts

Soon afterward the stock clutch quadrant completely failed. Just slammed down while sitting at light, car stalled and lurched forward, foot still on the floor!! Seemed like the cable broke but soon figured the pawl completely stripped and let go.

Soon after all this was fixed the trans started popping out of first from a stop. This startled the **** out of me, and never got used to it. It slowly got harder and harder to grab first. I was able to get my spare T-5 working as it had some mutant reverse setup that would not work. So that trans went in Winter of 04 just when I bought the 93 Vic.

Check out the pic of the 1-2 fork, the crappy quadrant caused the gears to spin too much during idling, then shifting into first would start to dig into the fork due to the force of the spinning 1-2 slider.


Note almost no damage to the engagment teeth that I can see, the 1-2 slider teeth would require dissasembly of the mainshaft for inspection.





It almost looks like replace fork, new pads and back together?? I was expecting more obvious damage to the face teeth and slider, now I am not sure what to do.

[MEDIK418]

I've rebuilt three of these things and what you're describing was typical of all three of the ones I did. The problem with them was two-fold though. There was enough wear in the bearings that the entire mainshaft would move back and forth when tryint to shift the thing. This caused the driver to push the shifter a little harder to keep it in gear. This I presume wore out or broke the shift forks and pads. All the pushing after a while was wasted effort since most of the effort went into moving the mainshaft back and forth. It would have to be a really strange deal to strip the teeth out of the inside of the slider. I'm not saying it can't happen but as good as the blocker ring and engagement dogs look that you can see, I can't see the slider being much worse. If it were mine, I'd overhaul it while it's out. Then again, if there's no end play in the main shaft, maybe a close inspection and repair of the forks might work. If it were me, it would get a new kit before my tired old body crawled under the thing again.

[Chevyguy]

Originally Posted by MEDIK418

I've rebuilt three of these things and what you're describing was typical of all three of the ones I did. The problem with them was two-fold though. There was enough wear in the bearings that the entire mainshaft would move back and forth when tryint to shift the thing. This caused the driver to push the shifter a little harder to keep it in gear. This I presume wore out or broke the shift forks and pads. All the pushing after a while was wasted effort since most of the effort went into moving the mainshaft back and forth. It would have to be a really strange deal to strip the teeth out of the inside of the slider. I'm not saying it can't happen but as good as the blocker ring and engagement dogs look that you can see, I can't see the slider being much worse. If it were mine, I'd overhaul it while it's out. Then again, if there's no end play in the main shaft, maybe a close inspection and repair of the forks might work. If it were me, it would get a new kit before my tired old body crawled under the thing again.

Thanks for the reply, the mainshaft seems pretty tight, but I will double check for any play. I would not have guessed something like you described would happen.

[Chevyguy]

Quick update

Swapping in a spare cover with good forks did the trick. For good luck I swapped in the two new nylon fork tabs from the 3/4 fork on the 1/2 in the spare cover.

Trans shifts great and has a nice solid feel going into first