CX-Adam

Truth.

Litre, try it a few times without the gasket maker on. You'll be happy you did.

LiteraCola

I also was having trouble with the snap ring pliers. I needed another set of hands, but in the meantime I spread the snap ring and put a zip tie on the pliers to help hold it in place. I feel like it's definitely possible to spread it too much...

LiteraCola

True. After 3 times of messing with it and subsequently ruining my gasket maker bead, I decided to oil the bearings and the case and cover it up for the night. That was my plan, but I had to walk away before I threw it outside haha

CX-Adam

I've been there and then some, dude. At least you didn't put a hole through the case like I did with mine.

LiteraCola

Oh my...part of me doesn't want to know how you pulled that off haha

mk378

Put the transmission engine side down on the bench like you have it. Set the case on as far as it will go without opening the snap ring, then put two bolts in loosely (on opposite sides). Now when you snap the ring it will slide straight down those bolts and not mess up the sealer.

94EG8

What you want are lockring pliers, like so:



These make that lock ring stupidly easy. Snap ring pliers on the other hand will drive you nuts.

As for the reassembly. Set the outside half of the case on, even with the snap ring not spread it should go down to within 1/4" of the closing all the way. If it doesn't stick a screwdriver in the hole where where the spring pin (so called bitch pin) goes through the shifter rod and start shifting it while wiggling the top half of the case, normally they'll drop right down. Then spread the lock ring to let it drop the rest of the way. At this point the countershaft bearing still wont quite be seated in the lock ring. To do this you can either use a small prybar with a curved end to pry up on the nut on the end of the countershaft to lift the counteshaft up so it snaps into place, or you can flip the transmission over, hold it about 1" above the floor or workbench and drop it. Both methods work well, I usually go with the first one but I have used both.

Finally, make sure if you didn't already that you actually pull the gears off the shafts and clean everything. Both shafts normally have the oiling holes plugged with debris once you actually get them apart.

LiteraCola

Well, folks... I used the "turn over and drop" method and everything went together beautifully! Now all I need are my axle seals (should be where sometime next week) and my flywheel (should be here today) and I'll be throwing this bitch back together! Today at work I took the shifter and stabilizer bar apart, sandblasted and painted the stabilizer, installed new Energy bushings, lubed the shifter ball and socket and put it all back together. She's gonna be like a brand new car!

CX-Adam

Nice! Glad it went well.

LiteraCola

Well, guys... I got the car back together yesterday, got my little baggy with the bitch pin, my punch and the spring clip, emptied the baggy right next to where I was laying under the car... Thirty seconds went by before I went to grab the bitch pin. POOF, gone. It totally vanished. I spent the next hour searching for it; I drug a damn magnet across the grass in a 10' circle and found nothing. I broke down and called the Honda stealership and ordered one, and a dizzy o-ring. So hopefully the car will be running this evening!

CX-Adam

We need to come up with a name for that pin to describe what a pain in the *** it is. Oh wait. How many times did you drop the f-bomb searching for it?

TomCat39

Every time I knock the bitch-pin out at the salvage yard to do a motor or tranny pull, I throw it in my tool bag and keep it. I have a few extra bitch-pins just in case I ever lose one like you just did.

Best of luck today.

LiteraCola

So I got the car back together; quite a bit of cursing happened, and I was tempted a few times to light the car on fire haha. Anyways. The car runs fine, the Energy shifter stabilizer bushings make it feel so much better than it did! But I'm having some trouble getting her into reverse. Sometimes, it won't go at all. I noticed that if I go to 4th, and then reverse, it helps. But overall, reverse isn't working too well. Any thoughts?

TomCat39

It's pretty common. There is no synchro for the reverse gear.

The two tricks I do is put it into 2nd gear, or I just lift up on the clutch pedal for a split second while in neutral so it spins the shaft a little.

Those two tricks always seems to work for me.

LiteraCola

It worked perfectly fine before; that's what I don't understand.

94EG8

You may not have had everything lined up and damaged the shift change mechanism when you reinstalled the interlock guide bolt.

LiteraCola

If that were the case, wouldn't I be having trouble in their gears as well?

94EG8

The one time I did it I only had issues with reverse.

LiteraCola

Damnit. So I guess I'll be tearing it apart again. ****.

94EG8

With the transmission out, but still assembled remove the interlock guide bolt and look in the hole, if you see where the bolt has marked stuff up inside you'll know what you did wrong.

LiteraCola

Okay fellas. I'm pretty sure I figured out my issue. I tore everything apart, checked the interlock guide bolt hole and everything else looked fine. I "test drove" the trans on my work bench, running through each gear and looking everything over. The trans operates perfectly... Reverse is basically impossible to "test drive"; Gotta have that leverage from the shifter linkage. Check out this picture and tell me what you see....
This is from the first time I tore it apart. Dirty, but everything is correct...


Now look at this one. Does that reverse idler gear look weird to you?

If your answer was, " The reverse idler gear was installed upside down, dumbass!", then you're correct! I even googled images of the trans just to be sure. I guess she'll be going back together tomorrow! The fluid was kinda dirty and the magnet had already picked up some shavings; I assume that's from the few times I tried to force reverse. Whoops!

This time her *** is in the garage and the Corvette is out in the cold.

94EG8

This had crossed my mind, but I wasn't sure if it was actually possible to put the reverse idler in upside down as I'd never tried it.

What are you running for fluid?

LiteraCola

I'm running Honda MTF; good thing I bought extra! It makes perfect sense now. If I used TomCat's method of basically double-clutching (or releasing the clutch a little in neutral before trying reverse), it would just barely go in, but as soon as the clutch would start coming out it would grind and pop out. And the reverse gear is a little chewed up on the top (or bottom) side of the teeth.

CX-Adam

Man, you got the trans back out quickly. Well done.

tony_2018

When you're determine to finish the damn job...nothing gets in your way. Not even a snow storm.