So, Thursday I am driving onto Redstone with a friend for a meeting and I am getting onto Research. First time he rode in my car. And third grinds. Huh?

Coming back, it got REALLY hard to get into gears. And to get out of gear. Something was holding or binding. Dangit.

So I call Andy Wittschen. As some of you know, his shop "Andy's Mustang and Auto Repair" is open. We talk and try a little troubleshooting over the phone. No go. His advice is not to drive it and I have to agree. I rebuilt this T5 to Z-spec a year ago. Within one hour, I have a rollback picking it up (I LOVE Parker Towing!) and Enterprise has already come out and I have rented a car and back to work. One hour. Far out.

I talk with Andy a bit on Friday morning. I asked him to check out an oil leak while he was there that I have had since I dropped the engine in back in September. He tells me that he already has the tranny out and open and found the problem. Broken 3-4 blocker ring. It was jamming up everything. Luckily, it did not appear to trash any gears or the cluster shaft. Good thing, that was the expensive part of the rebuild at $550. The bearings for both 3rd and 4th gear were trashed and he thought that he had enough parts around to fix it. He also mentioned that third gear was not going back on like he felt it should so he was deburring and testing, deburring and testing.

Kinda cool.

 

Andy is good. I sent a coworker to him with a leaky Pontiac intake. His estimate beat everyone's bid by $200, and then delivered for even less than his estimate.

Any idea what caused the breakage?

 

No, not really. I can only think a failed part from the rebuild kit I bought. It has kinda "stuck" in fourth about three times since I rebuilt it last year. Once I could get it back out of gear, it would be fine. I knew that it was not a clutch adjustment. So, I guess it was just waiting to happen.

He's also gonna take a look at that *cough* small oil leak I have.

 

Sounds like Andy is full-up and running with the new shop which is great. Andy helped me out a few times and I could use his service again on the wife's Lincoln. I've lost contact with him.....got any contact info to share?

 

This is one of the Stickies at the top of the page.

http://forums.bradbarnett.net/showthread.php?t=464111

 

Well, it shifts again. I have a baggie full of parts. May have to remember to bring them to the next meeting. I have no idea how it was shifting in the first place.

 

There IS a certain order the parts have to go back into the tranny!

Glad you got it back. Think of the bill as a rare monthly payment.

 

Assembly is overrated.

 

Well, since you helped me put in the rear gears, I'm glad it doesn't matter there!

And, yeah... A very rare payment.
I gotta tell Andy how I had to work on it once I got it home, though.

 

I was thinking about your gears the other day...wondering if the noise you were blaming on the gears was in fact your tranny. How does it all sound now?

 

I still hear a bit of the gear noise.

One thing that did disappear was some vibration and especially when I would catch the tranny just taking off there was a bad feel.

I am thinking that the gear noise may be more of an axle issue.
One day I will get that 5-lug rear disc kit in and we will see.