i had this posted in the 80's truck section but i figure this is a more appropriate area.

Howdy!

ok, got some insight and a question. first of all heres my ride.

86 F150 4x4 300 cid I6 with the 4speed manual tranni

tremec t170 rts tower shifter style

So heres what happened. everything seemed pretty normal but whenever i pushed the clutch pedal i heard a odd squeak from under the dash. didnt really think anything of it but it was noticable.

then one day the squeak ended with a pop. after that the shifting became a little more difficult... not bad mind you but, i dont know... sticky? it would try to move a little when i started it in gear, clutch pedal pushed in. it really didnt like to switch directions while running. i know, i know, i should have stopped driving it and fixed it but i didnt for one reason or another and just kind of wrote it off as just another quirk of my old truck.

well it just kind of got progressively worse. and i finally got to looking around. i had recently changed the clutch so knew that wasnt the problem but i thought maybe the hydaulic slave or master cylinder was leaking or weak... no leak. so tried to put a spacer inbetween the clutch fork and the slaves arm. well that didnt help either. so gave up for the day.

i went on about my errands for the day and on my way home as i was down shifting for a upcoming stop sign i got stuck in 3rd gear. i tried and tried to get it to come out but it was jammed tight. i ended up doing a california round on through the intersection and made it home ******* it out hard.

feeling pretty out of sorts i really looked hard for the problem. i knew the clutch was working at least a little because it didnt die while it idled clutch pedal down. so i wedged myself under the dash because the sun was shining through the windsheild and i couldnt see much under there with out the shielding the dash provided. well when i pushed in the clutch pedal i noticed sunlight... let it off and the sunlight disappeared... the firewall section that holds the clutch master cylinder had come loose... the sweaking had been the screws that held it in place and the pop noise? the final screw bidding goodbye to the truck. so yeah, i fixed that, grinning ear to ear. yay! all better... til i got in and suprise! still stuck in third.

so i riped out the carpeting and popped off the access cover to the tranni. took off the top cover of the tranni. found the 3-4 shift collar and did about all i could short of using a prybar on it. finally i did though and thats when i found the problem. i was greeted by another pop noise. the snapping of metal... nearly puked when i heard it. scared to look i put my hand down in there and found a small piece of metal sticking out of the collar. it came free with a little wiggle.

i held in my hand what i later found out was a sychronizer key or plate or insert... depending on who you ask. i guess banging the gears for so long had worn/broken off the end caps on the little thing and its springs had pushed it up to far. when i had tried to shift back out of third it slid back with the collar and caught on forth gear wedging the collar.

so now for the question i had. does anyone know if its possible to replace these with out pulling the tranni? i had read on a jeep forum (they used the same tranni in the cj's in the early-mid 80's) that the fix could be done on the side of the road. the guys didnt go into detail though.

looking at it it "seems" doable. just pull the ring spring back towards you with the collar pushed forward and slide the key in under the collar... maybe with a little tap from a hammer?

i'm currently waiting for the part to get shipped here so i've got a little time to research the subject before i try it.

thanks!

 

Any chance you can take a pic of the part/that part of the tranny where it came from? I can't be sure what exactly you're talking about, but I have a feeling that you're going to need to pull the tranny for this....

 

this isnt mine but it looks pretty close. cant find my camera... the underside is hollow, like a peice of box channel. the ring spring fits up inside keeping tension against the collar.

 

again not mine but close enough to get an idea of the situation. the first one shows the key while being pressed down by the shift collar in the neutral position. the second is without the collar all together. the key would kind of pivot up on one side or the other depending on which gear the transmission was in. i guess this is to hold the tranni in that gear.

 

Okay, the part you showed me jarred my memory--I had changed the bearings on this same tranny a few years ago, and remember wrestling a little with these parts. You should be able to get away with it as you mentioned, tapping it in. Just make sure that it's well seated afterwards, that the spring won't force it loose again. Try using something lighter than a hammer first, I'd think.

Good luck

 

yeah, a hammer wouldn't be the best way to start off the installation process.

 

Run your fingers around, or spin the shafts, to make sure the others on the same assembly are not loose as well before you go putting everything back together.

 

one of the other 2 was slipping like the first one. i noticed it when i was checking the gears themselves. i had slid the collar forward into 3rd and it got stuck again... i'd say its a fair bet that the #3 key is in bad shape also.

if i hadnt been fiddling i probably wouldnt have noticed it though. thanks for the heads up =)

it took some doing but i managed to find all 3 of the keys at a dealership parts dept so i plan on replacing all of them. no parts store carries these parts and i'm pretty sure no one makes them anymore either. so people with this tranni had better take good care of them... including my 3 i bought there are 27 total keys availible from ford dealers in a 1500mile radius from central illinois. at least thats what the local dealership's search turned up.

 

If you need to find parts for it, try a transmission parts supplier--you might have more luck. I had the transmission apart when I was playing with these, and even then it was a PITA trying to get them all back/well seated.

 

the jeep guy was full of it... thanks to the double springs it cant be done.

i AM going to do this without pulling that tranni if it kills me...

my new plan is:

pop out the retaining pin for the 3-4th gear shift fork.

remove fork and slide

slide collar off of the synchronizer assembly completely and let it rest on 4th gear cogs.

use an ultra thin masking tape or other paper based tape to hold the new synchro keys in their slots.

the reverse order to re-install


goin out now to give it a shot.

 

nope. the fork wouldnt come off of the collar. there must be something under the top shaft that i cant see because it "looks" like it should come right out after the pin and rail are removed. looks like my only other choice is to make it all the way apart.

i put everything back together minus the synch keys and it "seems" to shift and roll fine without them. so i'm thinking i'll try to get it to a tranni shop. i'm seriously undertooled for pulling and dismantling a tranni.

 

Check out the tech article here on the forum for T-18 rebuild. It is a great step-by-step article that you could at least use to gauge how difficult it would be/what tools you might need (the trannies are very similarly laid out). R&R'ing the t-case and tranny was a pain, to be sure (I made cradles with scrap wood and attatched them to my floor jack). All in all, I found it to be a lot of steps, but not overly expensive (especially if you're just replacing those keys).

Good luck.

 

talked to a friend of the family mechanic today about it. he'd charge me $550 to pull, repair and reinstall... still seemed a little steep. think he forgot we're friends. lol

i'm seriously thinking about doing it myself. i've had it out before and it wasnt to terrible. but that was in a garage with about any tool i could ever happen to need. now its in my gravel driveway with a junky dollar store(ish) toolset.

to top things off, while fishing for the roll pin i dropped in the tranni i found what looks like part of the pressure spring for the synchro...

 

3) C4AZ7A044B .. First/Second Gear Syncronizer Shoe.

C4AZ7A044B replaced C4AZ7A044A due to a package quantity change.
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3) C3AZ7A044C .. Third/Fourth Gear Syncronizer Shoe.

C3AZ7A044C replaced C3AZ7A044A due to a package quantity change.
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Why am I mentioning this? Because these Tremac syncronizer shoes are the same as the Ford 4 speed top loader introduced in 1964.

In the late 1980's, Ford changed the package quantity of 10's of 1000's of small parts.

When the idiots at Ford did that, they changed the part numbers SUFFIX rendering all the old part numbers obsolete.

This has been a boondoggle ever since because NO 1979 or earlier parts catalog has these later part numbers.

Most newbie parts guys do not know this, tell ppl the parts are obsolete, when in many cases they are not.

 

Consider finding a Mazda 5 speed or a ZF. While I think the $550 offer is reasonable, if I could afford it, I would move up to one of the other boxes.