Re: More T-5 Nuggets

["Armand Eshleman" <aje1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I started my T5 project with what must have been a late 80's core. Third
gear and the
cluster had teeth missing, it had the  "black" blocker rings and it is
a world class. The guys that checked it out before I bought it lost the tag.
I bought it
for 50 bucks, tore it down, cleaned everything, bought a rebuild kit from
Hanlon
http://www.hanlonmotorsports.com/
Motorsports for about $170, Hanlon's rebuild video,  new 2nd ,3rd and
cluster gears
from Reman Xpress off of evil bay (this guy is still selling)(the parts had
Blumenthal on em) for about $250,
 http://www.blumenthalmfg.com/  in retrospect I would have bought the gears
and cluster from
Bob Hanlon too. He mentioned that some parts are coming from overseas and he
has sold them
 and thinks they aren't bad parts, I think Blumenthal parts are from across
the water too. I hope they
are OK, only time will tell. Any body had experience with Reman Xpress off
of evil bay, good? bad?
I also bought  a steel input housing ($40) and had the snout shortened and
the cover turned to fit the
AMC bell housing.  I could have gotten by with the aluminum factory part,
maybe.  I had to buy some extra shims and then
have them surface ground to the thickness I needed. I also couldn't take
using the factory
shifter so I bought a B&M shifter from evilbay for $80. So for about $600 to
$700
 I have a T5 that I know what shape it's in. The parts I used to replace the
factory parts are
 supposed to upgrade the T5 to 300 plus ft lbs, We'll see.
One website I found  had a drawing of what to machine to employ a tapered
roller
bearing and race where the input and main shafts join together to preload
the shafts a bit more and create
additional support for the thrust forces. This mod upped the torque
capabilities even more !
http://pomoforacing.com/tech/T5Rebuild2002.pdf
This  website gives you a blow by blow of how to rebuild a T5 in pdf format.

 Bob Hanlon said that a T5 will take a lot of
abuse..... what the T5s don't like is real sticky tires and hard launches,
not to mention missed
shifts. Bob also said he can build them so they can take more punishment
too.
But if it's any consolation I've had Muncie 4 speeds grenade on me when I
thought they
shouldn't have so don't condemn the venerable T5 too easy, remember if we
use them for things
the engineers didn't design them for we have no one to blame but ourselves.
I found a site that
was talking about road racing cars using T5s and having problems with
cluster gear bearings,
 and stuff not taking the abuse so they made a new bearing retainer for it.
Check it out.
http://www.5speeds.com/t5.htm
I wish I could remember all the stuff I researched about T5s,     lately I
find myself sitting in front of the
computer putzing around instead of actually doing things. I do finally have
my T5 altogether and it
shifts through the gears just fine on the bench. Now I need to  get a hold
of some of that good
Red Line synthetic Dexron ll automatic trans fluid and pop the thing in the
car.  The Javelin body looks
like the shifter wil come up in the same hole that the automatic shifter
came through. Sad part is the
console will to go.

For anyone who is interested in more is better.............
If you really want to go the extreme 5 or 6 speed route check out this
site.......
http://www.darkhorseperformance.com/
a complete kit to swap  into an AMC. High bucks stuff but I think it's
pretty much unbreakable.

I'm tired of typing one finger so I think I'll close this post.

thanks for reading my crazy posts,

Armand