blandry23

i do have a tranny in the parts car, but im looking to do a rebuild on that and put it into my 84 to replace the automatic. i know it devalues the car, but the trans is shot. it shows the same symptoms of having oil on the clutch of a manual car. i'll hit the gas and it will sit at an rpm until it hits the actual speed its supposed to be at that rpm in that gear, and then the rpms will go up. if i press the gas pedal down more it won't accelerate too much faster. and unless my foot is straight to the floor, it will shift religiously at 2300 rpm. the only exception is when i keep it out of overdrive, or if its in 5th gear. yea my car has a 5-speed automatic. apparently there are 2 overdrive gears lol.

thatpoorguy

lol ever torn apart a trans? I always intentionally avoided doing so because I know how much of a pain it is to remesh the gears and get everything perfectly aligned. A lot easier to just swap the entire trans lol. I did the same thing with my fd, I had the trans sent to a shop to have it inspected for some synchro issues. They tell me it would be 5 grand in parts alone. Rather than that I dug through google and found an imported jdm 97 trans with 30k miles. It has a shorter 5th gear but I wasn't building my fd for fuel mileage anyways lol

blandry23

i was just going by the haynes manual when it said that rebuilding a trans is something that the DIY mechanic can do. Maybe the trans isnt in that bad of shape so i won't have to do a rebuild on it. it does have 160k on it though. i think there might be a way for me to take it apart in a way that i won't be dismantling all the gears, but i will be able to see all of them and their condition. there is a rotary place that is by me. the guy said with all the parts he has, i could swap my car to manual for under 1k. the only thing he didn't have was the clutch pedal. maybe i'll stop by there and see if they have a low mileage trans thats in good working condition and maybe i can do a core deposit with the other one i have. or even put that one in the running one, and trade in the dead beat trans. then i would have 2 working transmissions. that is, if the trans on the parts car is actually in good condition. every trans ive found online so far has over 100k on it.

I just read over the book. it did say that i had to mark things in order to make it a lot easier, but nothing about mating the gears and all that. not saying that you're lying, just saying that the book conveniently left it out. i guess its inferred when you do a trans rebuild lol. i do remember hearing someone say that the engine and trans have to be aligned or something when they are mated to eachother.

going to the rotary guy by me would probably be the best thing to do. I went in his shop before and he's got transmissions up the wazoo. fortunately, i have a couple possibilities.

thatpoorguy

never a bad thing to have options. It's getting really hard to find any first gen parts with less than 100k miles that aren't rebuilds or brand new. I remember trying to find a rear axle for my fb when the lr bearing started making noise was next to impossible without buying an entire parts car, which I didn't need or have space for lol.

blandry23

yea fortunately i found a parts car. i need to get rid of the thing but im still trying to figure out which parts im gonna need for the future which would be hard to find. i guess with the rear end if worst came to worst i could use a miata one or ive heard of people throwing ford rear ends into their 7's which goes back to ford parts being interchangeable with mazda. my 84 will prob stay automatic for a while. ive heard gas is going up to 5/gallon so im prob gonna try to get my 83 fixed up, make my money back on it, and buy a car that gets awesome gas mileage.

blandry23

finally got her on the road. 4th is definitely gone. i dropped it in, no grind, but it was exactly like being in neutral. tried pushing it in a little more and got a grind. good news is at 40 mph she'll take on 5th so i could get away with that. something else i realized, if i get a little hard on the gas for a certain rpm the tranny whines a little loud. when i let off the gas she sounds fine. also, when i go to downshift it blocks me out of the gears (no grinds). but when i slow down it lets me back in. also a little hard to push it into gears sometimes. is the linkage loose, or is it possible that im trying to force it in too hard, or just not in the right way.

i also have a hole in the gas tank somewhere on the top. only started leaking when i filled her up. its a slow leak so i'm thinking that maybe a breather on the gas tank isn't sealed properly but idk. the guys a real douche. could have at least mentioned the leak.
now i gotta make sure what it is and hope that the other gas tank is in good enough shape to use as a replacement.

blandry23

sort of fixed my clutch problem. turned out the lock nuts on the adjustments weren't on correctly so i readjusted them the best i could. still locks me out a little bit cuz i couldn't adjust it to where it needs to be but it's pretty damn close. won't let me downshift from 5th to 3rd unless im going under 40 still, but at least im not locked out at stops anymore.

tried plugging the tank. may have patched where its leaking but it still leaks slowly. im gonna have to drop the tank and clean it up nice to find out where the hole is, or use the spare tank i have and hope that one is good. the many joys of having a parts car lol. i also need new plugs. besides that, shes doing pretty well. oh, and i need to change out the fan clutch assembly as well. the parts car one spins freely, but so does the one on my 83 and thats the one that is toast. this thing is turning out to be more of a project then a daily driver, but im ok with that. it will give me something to do.

thatpoorguy

Lol thats usually how it ends up. Buy a car to enjoy, it ends up spending more time on jackstands than pavement

blandry23

lol yea im finding that out more and more. at least she runs though. got the clutch problem fully fixed. had to make it so that there was no free play whatsoever because the height adjustment was adjusted fully out and still wasn't where it was supposed to be. no lockouts, no grinds, no problem lol. found out i can only fill to half a tank without it leaking. i'm just hoping it passes inspection. the tires aren't in the best shape either, so i was thinking of swapping them out with the ones i just bought for my 84 just to pass inspection, then switch them back. It pisses me off that something is always going wrong, but i should be thankful that its minor and that it isn't on jackstands lol. the strange tranny whine when i hit the gas hard also went away. im guessing it just needed some driving so the new mtf could clean out all the nasty stuff that built up over the years. definitely have my work cut out for me, but i'm a lot better off than i previously thought.

thatpoorguy

the gas tank leak could be an issue depending on if they do an emissions inspection. If they do in your area, they'll check the evap system which pulls vacuum on your fuel tank. with a leaking tank, pretty much a guaranteed fail.