Yow, woes, more like woah! From "get out the jack" to transmission on the table, 60 minutes. Man it's an easy car to work on! Got the cover off, the synchros were just fine. I measured the end play I should have earlier, and it was .074", right in the middle of the spec. Then I noticed the small teeth on 3rd gear were... blue? Pulled the nose thing (throwout bearing tube) off, the snap ring on the input shaft was out of it's groove. Oops. I know I installed it, because I have a photograph. Story short -- the input shaft ran inward, the cone for the friction ring pressed and spin against the mainshaft, peening the end, making a lot of heat, and the 13 rollers all became D-shaped and ground the input and mainshafts into ruins. Never made a sound, just started shifting funny. I rechecked the fit of the snapring, it wasn't that good, it was slightly sprung. I used a real snapring tool, didn't over-stretch it, but clearly I missed that it was worn. The groove is wider than the snap ring too, but clean and square. Its the snapring that came off. I don't really think the groove width is the problem, since it all sits flat and the bearing and fit was all fine. I didn't drop the trans on it's nose or anything. I looked for signs that the trans was jammed against the end of the crankshaft (nose of input shaft not shiny, hole in end of crank has drill/machine marks and consistently dull colored, etc). All of these parts (engine, bell, flywheel, trans, shaft, etc) all came out of the car so nothing like overall length changed etc. All other parts are completely fine. No trash in the box, and the oil was OK. The bad junk stayed in place. GDMF PITA! I have another T-96 to swipe parts from but I wonder if I should not just stick the T-14 in there and find another axle. With another year of school coming up I'm not ready to embark on the Pony adapter and T5 business, never mind the cost. I'd consider it I suppose if I could use the 1 x 10 spline clutch, eg. it will just stick in the existing hole. And as I'm a CA state employee, I am being paid minimum wage until the miserable SOBs in the legislature settle on a budget. (Not in CA you probably miss that teapotted tempest.) _______________________________________________ Amc-list mailing list Amc-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx http://splatter.wps.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/amc-list