I'll post a picture later, but last night I changed the transmission fluid in my '93 F-150 and on the drain plug, in addition to the fine metal filings , were some thin strips of metal and one roller from a bearing. This is on a M5R2. I've only had the truck since July, but haven't noticed anything strange about transmission - noises or vibration or anything.

I'm the 8th owner. The last owner did have a shop work on the transmission, but the receipt only says they replaced the 1-2 shift form, so I doubt they had gotten into the bearings at all.

I guess I'm looking to know at what point should I be looking at doing a rebuild?

Also, looking at rebuild kits online I see some state that it's for one variant or another. Is there a way to tell from the outside of the transmission which type of kit I should be looking at?

I don't currently have a shop press, but I've priced out a few lower end ones and they're within my means. I'm pretty handy at repairs, so I'm pretty confident that I can get it done with minimum of parts that I break on accident, if it needs a rebuild now.

 

You would have the M5OD-R2. The Rangers/Explorers got the R1.

 

Yes, it's a M5OD-R2 (hence why I called it a M5R2). Does that dictate the number of teeth in each gear? I think that was one of the identifying features mentioned on some of the kits.

Here's a picture of the metal that came out of the transmission.

 

my philosophy is, it it shifts fine and don't make any noise, don't worry about it unit it does start making noise

 

I agree with Tom. If it shifts fine, keep driving it and keep an eye on it

 

Sounds like a plan to me.

I was looking around over the weekend. Looks like a rebuilt transmission is just over $2k, if you can find someone with some stock on one. A rebuild kit, including bearings and synchronizer rings, runs around $400, and to do the rebuild I'd likely need a shop press. I can get a cheap shop press for under $200, but I think the slightly larger ones running around $250 would work better for my needs. I just don't really want to store a shop press long term, though if I had one, I'm sure I could find dozens of thing to break with it.

For now, I'll hold off. I've got a leaky brake master cylinder, likely due to over pressure when I was using the pressure bleeder (not following the manual until after I had first pressurized it).

 

at least flush the trans out; those shavings are not good for the trans or get a used trans.

 

@dremtofford How would I go about flushing the trans? Just drain and fill a few times, running the fluid through a filter each time? I have some 220 mesh filters for paint work, or some coffee filters. I'd rather not just buy a bunch of transmission fluid and pour it in just for it to come back out and go to the dump.

 

yup, running it through a filter a few times is fine.

 

You can pull the shifter out of the top and pull the drain plug
Then run some fluid through it
That will flush it out some
Then it's easy to refill, just remove the fill plug and add more to the shifter hole

 

When I drain it again, would it be of any use to take some magnets and drag them along the bottom outside of the case? I have a decent collection of rare earth magnets (collected from hard drives a few decades back) and can do this easily. Not sure if the bottom of the case is smooth or if it has recesses where debris could get trapped. I was also thinking of using my telescoping magnet to fish around just inside the drain plug hole to collect what I could.

I'll probably start doing this next week. Yesterday I replaced some fuel lines and the frame mounted fuel filter, as well as the brake master cylinder, but I still need to bleed the brakes.

 

With 7 previous owners it's hard to tell where you might be. Someone could have made a repair in the past and never bothered to flush the transmission to remove what they dropped or the little bits from the failed part. Given the spotty maintenance many of these trucks get your oil change could easily be the first one in a decade or two. If it's working correctly I would only concern myself with "cleaning" the transmission now that you know what's in there. Pull the top plate and drop the plug and dump a gallon or so of diesel through the transmission to flush it out. Refill and forget about it.

 

I was thinking the same- around here, the Mazda transmission's easy to find in a junkyard, facefook, or craigslist.
Then take that apart, see what you have, and if it's in good shape, freshen it and keep it standing by.

That level of part ejection from a manual transmission is usually bad news.
They need all their rollers in place, and when a roller makes a break for it,
more can follow the same path.

But then, I tend to replace things proactively, and enjoy doing things
like refreshing a spare transmission...

t

 

I drove it with the fresh fluid around 10 miles or so on Sunday, and drained it out last night. No more chunks came out, and using a fist-full of hard drive magnets didn't drag any pieces around. The drain plug magnet had a good amount of filings stuck to it. I figure this is mostly because the transmission hasn't been rinsed out of all of the filings. Also, some small amount of glitter in the fluid. I poured the fluid through a 190 micron screen and barely got anything out of that.

I'm thinking my next step is to rinse out the transmission with some diesel fuel, maybe put the rear end on jack stands and run the transmission a bit to get the fuel to splash around some. Thinking I do this around 3-4 times (a 5 gallon can of diesel), then reload it with transmission fluid, run the transmission around 100-200 miles, drain it and check the plug and fluid.

I don't have the time at the moment to swap out the transmission, or to do a rebuild on it. For a rebuild, I figure I'd need a transmission jack, a shop press, and some bearing separators. I can probably borrow the latter two, but I'd at least need to get a press. Don't really want one taking up space, but if I had one, I can guarantee a lot of things would be broken around the house in short order. The rebuild kit, including all of the seals, gaskets, bearings, and synchronizer rings runs just under $400. I can get a rebuilt transmission for as low as $1.2k (autozone), but I think I'd rather do it myself so that I could only blame myself if something went wrong on it. Plus, I'd like to learn more about how they're put together and function. I'd probably go ahead and replace the clutch at the same time, not sure about the flywheel. All in all, it'd run up the bill quite a bit.

I'm usually in the camp of replacing things that are worn but not broken just yet, but I need this vehicle to be able to move around at least a few times every month for the coming few months, just to play musical vehicles. What I'll probably do is work on checking through the rest of the fluids to make sure there's nothing else major wrong with this truck before I pour a lot more into it. I still need to check/change the diff fluid and fix some oil leaks on the top end of the engine. With doing the top end, I'm not sure if I want to go a little bit further and pull the head so I can check on all of the pistons (no bore scope, but I have a full gasket set so I could replace the head gasket). I've done that level of work on a v-twin riding mower engine, but not on a road vehicle engine. But again, this would need to be done sometime mid-next year.

 

I am not sure I would run diesel through it. I think I would just keep driving it around and be prepared if it gets rowdy.