duragg

Lots happened today. Found a 1980 5 speed with perfect gears. Picking the best parts from both to make one box. The C/G bearing in this new box was literally gone. No trace except a few balls and some race. Mike at SuperFinishers examined the synchro cone discussed above and it is NOT chrome but hardened and ground to that shape. We were able to remove the transferred brass and make a better surface. I was wrong on the material. The teeth are still nubby so I will use my newer gear. I am having fun again. I just knew there were rabbits in that hat somwhere. Editorial commentary: Funny thing about getting older. I am a fairly impatient person. Type A: Business Owner. But with a lifestyle addiction. We work hard, but nothing crazy. So here I am wondering where I will find some NLA Z parts so I can make the race next weekend and the only option seems like having Nissan overnight one from Japan. Nah.. I will just chill out till Monday. I had some feeling that today, I would find what I needed. It was no accident, I worked Craigslist and pulled that rabbit when I needed him to be there. I probably need to just "chill" a little more often. The rabbit is in that hat already.

Rabbit from a hat! Blind squirrel.. Found a near perfect 1980 5sp.. I'm back on track thx Don!

Ohh. Have a line on parts. Going to look tonight. .. Getting that tingly feeling in my leg again Tj

Or I can buy an entire 5 speed. I am hurting for parts... help.. I believe the gear I need may be found in: 1980 and on Nissan 810 1979 to 1982 720 Pickup 1985 and on 720 Pickup 1981 to 1983 200SX? 1978-1983 280ZX possibly (for sure 1981-1983)

I'm pretty heavy into the 126 series MB. 1980s to 1991. Things got REALLY complicated with the w140 and my Indy says they are a bear. Lots of parts and systems. Lots of window regulators. If you are interested I can give you his number. Keeping that car top-shape would be a full time endeavor, perhaps a little more so than most. Whereas he swears the 2001-2003 E320 is like the best car ever that he works on. Bulletproof and for this I just about bought one recently. Tj

I was hoping for transferred material but you can feel the worn spots where the chrome is gone. I hit it with 3M pad to be sure and showed it to BigMike (plating and superfinisher) confirmed dead. Yes to the teeth also. Lots of good reasons to RedTag that gear. On to the springs. I am tempted to play with those. I may just order new. Or put a small spacer to increase the push. These keys keep the slider stable and push the brass ring onto the cone when shifting. So. Heavier springs might marginally increase shifting force and might cause speed matching a little sooner. I will experiment with this and report back. As for lapping, I did lap the new brass rings to these cones in 2009 when I last worked on this box. Lapping compound is very aggressive and doesn't make the chrome last any longer. Maybe I broke into the thin aging chrome then. Once the chrome is gone, the underlying material will eat the brass virtually instantly. Still considering this for round 2 rebuild now.

Pic of 2nd gear cone. Should be clean solid chrome, but it is worn down to some underplating material (copper?) Any new brass ring will be rapidly worn away again. Trying to replace this part (32250-e9200 or e9260) You can also see wear marks on the face of the 2nd synchro ring on let and good 1st on right

Bout 3"? Perfect alignment, equal throw, positive return to stop, don't over-constrain the butterfly position adjuster (some refer to as idle speed screw). I designated one carb as master and the others as slave and just adjust the master. I can take close pix if u need. Would be TRICK to make it real easy to adjust each rod length without that silly jam-nut arrangement. Half mine are r/h thread, other is l/h thread and its just a g/r.

Been working on that already (spare box). I have to use the last years of the N/A box for rationic reasons. In Phx the ZX parts are all quickly snapped up by one guy so its impossible to get much later stuff here.

Part number is 32250-e9200 2nd gear for a later ZX 5 speed. Nissan is b/o for a month

Finished tear down tonight. Pics to follow. Unfortunately 2nd gear sync cone appears goldish in color which I assume is the end of the hard chrome plating and the beginning of thw sub-plating and the end of the line for this gear. It will quickly consume any synchro ring. Nissan is Back Ordered so this whole rebuild just took a month delay. Unless I can scour the earth for one on a shelf somewhere.

Well crap... I did neither of those things. Someday I am going to resurrect this thread and report back. Hopefully 10+ years.

Interesting link: http://www.gforcetransmissions.com/face-tooth.asp Another good read: http://www.brokevw.com/gear_selection.html More thoughts about transmissions while I am waiting for my parts to ship.. (GRrrrr). * Resting your hand on the shift lever will wear out the shift for faster and send wear metals into the oil and synchros. * ANY grinding in any gear is bad and sends wear metals into the oil and synchros. * Leaving a car in gear while parked for extended periods of time results in the synchro spring staying compressed which won't make it work any better in the long run. * Thicker oils have significantly greater drag among the gears and make the synchro work harder.

Dove into teardown today and took a bunch more pics. I ask the Managements permission to post some larger pictures so that future generations can gleen data from them. WARNING: I rebuilt this tranny last and sometimes it is tricky to know which exact way parts go together and the manual is unclear. Anyway, the point of this thread is to discuss and learn more about slick shifting old school Datsun Trannys. This is for the DIY types.

The brass synchro you see on the left is toast. In that picture it is in the relaxed (retracted) position. If you watch the video I engage 2nd and you can see the ring bottom out, no clearance. All new synchros are inbound soon I hope. Haven't got tracking number yet.

If you are asking me, I had bad driveshaft angles and adjusted the rear of the R200 down to correct the angles and problem solved. Both the R/T / Energy mount and the Solid Arizona Zcar mount screw up the geometry a little- which is all it takes. If I were doing it again I would find a shorter Energy bushing and then use spacers or washers to get back to stock geometry. Tj

If the cone is good I am going to sharpen them all and try that. That fork damage / wear is a great reason drivers need to keep their paws off the lever after shifting. It is not unlikely that in the past the driver of the doner ZX this box came from was a hand-rester. Holding his hand on 2nd while accelerating and pushing the rod forward, causing wear to the fork sides. I am interested to see what the latest version of the fork looks like when it gets here. That may be why they are using those plastic tabs, to keep some space and prevent that wear. Who knows. Nissan does have a Service Bulletin about the forks but I cannot find it or see it. It is not in the TSBs I can get from Identifix either. Excited to make these changes once the parts come in and see how it all goes.

Agreed NewZed. The Coupling Speeve is common to 1/2 and 3/4. I may be able to sharpen the points and switch 1/2 for 3/4, suspecting 1/2 takes the most abuse. This pic has a good close up of the dog teeth.

I won't know till the new parts are here, as to how the new brass rings sit in the cones if the gear itself is still serviceable. If the new riings bottom out in the cones then the gear itself is toast. But the whole point of Brass on Steel is the brass wears, the steel don't. Will have to see. And the teeth on the engagement side of the 2nd gear aren't perfect. Its a $134 gear (assuming not NLA) so I hope it can be salvaged. At a minimum I will dress all the teeth if the brass ring sit properly. Money is always an object, so I would replace everything if I could. Will know more next week when the new parts come in and a proper determination can be made. Tj

I am real glad I tore down this tranny to do Fault Analysis on this one as the problems are pretty clear. I made a video to show the tranny, synchros and gears in action and whata FPITA... between the text messages, and phone calls and Gindr messages and then the air compressor, well I apologize for my unprofessional language. There is some damage to the dog teeth which I need to decide to file back sharp, or spend another $250 on new parts to fix that.

Could use a second set of eyes here. RMS and freeze plug dry. Plate on Flywheel on with dowels located and pressed. Torqued to 107ft lbs per 1983 FSM with a little bit of Med Loctite. I think I got it all?

I rented a bunch of Fords recently and I am impressed with them all. Nice firm suspension, great build quality. When my Frontier flames up I will probably look at the new Explorer. Very impressed with the Focus overall. For a DD, I am an Auto vs 5 speed guy.

Yes everyone has this problem, myself included. Delete the proportioning valve and get creative to balance the system. I am planning to adjust pad area on the fronts to start balancing the system a little better. Should have just left the stock fronts, but the Yotas were free and look so cool (to me, when I have the wheels off that is).

My heart was set on an LS conversion until I realized that the HP battle is not a battle that can ever be won. Everyone does LS swaps and Big HP Turbo Cars, Cadillac station wagons running 12sec 1/4s right out of the box. But what people really like and appreciate is a unique sound and apperance. Old school is cool. Half the kids I meet have NEVER heard of Datsun. Did you know that? Never heard the word "Datsun". They ask where I got the 6 cylinder from... It has actually happend. Sucks getting old!! Us kidz grew up with a Z. It is a known engineering fact that an inline 6 or V12 is the best sounding motor built (Come to Reno for the air races...) So why not be old-school cool and run pumped up hard breathing NA Z motors rattling and knocking and scrapping down the straights. My next motor would be a Stroker L series at 12:1 with a gnarly cam and 8000rpm hp peak through straight pipes. Perhaps this summer.

I'm not gonna do any Synchro tooth mods. I'm just going to put in good quality OEM Nissan parts and measure properly this time. See how it goes from there. I will find another box down the road to experiment with. Unfortunatly the SX and later trannies don't have gear ratios that benefit me, so I am stuck with this box for a while.