I can't help but sit here and laugh at myself and/or the irony involved.
Yesterday, some posts to a thread on rec.autos.tech about how great, reliable, bulletproof, unkillable, etc, etc, etc, Mazda engines are. Today, mine came home form the paper route on a flatbed wrecker - No, the engine didn't die... The transmission puked - apparently pretty severely.
By now, I expect that most who are familiar with me and my posts are (and those who aren't are about to become) aware that I drive an '82 Mazda 626, RWD, with a 5 speed stick powered by the near-indestructible
2 liter SOHC inline 4-cylinder "MA" model engine. What do folks make of these sypmtoms? (It takes longer to type/read than it did to live it)Came to my "17th-from-done-and-time-to-go-home stop on the route, stuffed a paper, and pulled away in first gear. 20 yards or so to a stop sign, right turn, clutch, shift to second in the usual manner, but after completing the stick-motion, hear a muffled "thump" or perhaps "clunk" noise, not unlike the sound of something such as a stick or rock or similar smallish-but-relatively dense item getting tossed against the floorboards by a tire just before I start to lift my foot off the clutch and mash the throttle to continue accelerating. Can't say anything more specific about the location the noise came from than "somewhere underneath". As clutch foot comes up, a mighty "clash of gears" noise (*MANY* times louder than a simple "If ya can't find 'em, grind 'em") erupts at pretty much exactly the point I expect it to start catching. Re-mash clutch hurriedly - Sound ceases. Shift to neutral - Lift clutch foot. No noise other than a barely audible whirr that's been present since the first time I dropped my butt in the driver's seat on the day I bought the beast. Hmmm... Must not have gotten all the way into second? Shift to first to regain some ground speed, lift clutch foot, major gear-grind noise again. WTF??? I *KNOW* It's in first! Mash clutch, shift back to neutral, declutch, no noise, but now the whirr is a buzz. Back to first. Massive grind. Back to second, ditto. ???????? OK, try third. Engine lugs a bit due to low ground speed, but otherwise, no noise, no problems, and down the road I go. Upshift to fourth for a section of downhill, then a quarter mile or so later, back down to third as the downhill changes into an uphill and the engine starts to lug. Incline steepens, and as usual at that particular place on the route, speed drops and engine starts suggesting it wants to lug down - downshift for second. Slides in nice enough - Until I lift my foot off the clutch - Gear-clash-on-steroids again. What the?!?!? Try third. NO problem, but too much gear for the hill. Ditto 4th. Pure "What happens if..." makes me try 5th. Same thing: No problem, aside from being too much gear. OK, something's DEFINITELY screwy... Back to third - no problem, except the car says "there's no chance I'm going to climb this hill at this speed in third". Coast to a stop, shut down, eyeball this, that, and the other, and after finding nothing visibly wrong (Dang! Forgot my x-ray specs!) decide I need to turn around and head back to the last house I went by and call for a tow. Use the slope to do the first part of a 3-point turn, but miss, and need to reverse to finish the turnaround. Reverse doesn't exist - Behavior is much like I'm trying to move with the clutch mashed to the floor, or the clutch is completely gone - Declutching doesn't lug the engine down even a little. Decide I'm going nowhere fast, and I'll make better time walking to someplace and calling Triple-A. Do so, and get it dragged home. (Thank the powers that be for paid-up Triple-A Plus cards... Driver estimate for this tow without the card: $190-$225 - renewing the card this year was no waste of money!)
Once home and unloaded, started eyeballing and testing again. Start it up. First and second both do the "grind on steroids" thing. Third will move the car, and doesn't make the grind, but for obvious reasons, that ain't good enough. Ditto 4th. Ditto 5th. Reverse won't move the car, but doesn't make the grind. Shut down and try treating it like a broken clutch-release. Putting it in first or second and cranking makes the same god-awful racket, and the car doesn't move. 3, 4, 5, and reverse, no noise - 3, 4, and 5 give me movement when I crank, but all three are too high to be useful. (Big surprise - NOT!) Reverse is apparently on vacation. No noise, no motion, and no sign that the car is even in gear.
I'm *SUSPECTING* that I broke or otherwise rendered a shift-rod (the 1/2 rod, to be precise) inoperative - Perhaps a set-screw holding one of the shift-forks to the rod let go? Or maybe broke the shift fork? (seems unlikely, as there was no "effort" involved) But if that's the case, why does it affect reverse?!? And if reverse is affected, why isn't 5th? (They both "run" on the same shift rod)
This one looks to be a bit of a stumper...
Oh well... No biggie. I've got the spare tranny from the wreck sitting here in a corner of the garage, so it's not like I'm facing mondo costs for a replacement - Basically, I'll be spending some time wrenching, but that's not really anything new or unusal. I'll be starting "transplant surgery" shortly. Once finished, I intend to tear the busted one down to see just what the heck went wrong and whether it's fixable. But meanwhile, I'd be interested in hearing any ideas/speculations/wild guesses the group might have about just what broke, based on the symptoms given.
Anybody got any guesss, however far-fetched they might be?
(Watch your followups if you're picky about where your messages land - As an afterthought, I've crossed this post to rec.autos.tech for "general" commentary, and rec.autos.makers.mazda.miata as "the closest thing to a Mazda 626 group that exists" in hopes of finding another Mazda gearhead with a bright idea or two)