Transaxle swap

Found an 88 Fox car with 92K miles on it, at junkyard. Minor RH side dent. Rest is pristine. Getting transaxle from it, junkyard personnel are pulling it for me today. Local shop will do the swap.

Transaxle is being transplanted to a 88 Fox wagon. Lost 4th gear entirely. Synchronizers are acting up, hear a slight gear engagement noise when going to 1st or 2nd gear. Last straw was "clankety" gear sound noise, last time I drove it to work. Was fine driving back home. Same shop replaced the entire clutch assy in this car 3 months ago.

Am leery of junkyard removing the transaxle. What should I look for? Should the gear oil for the transaxle be changed while out of the vehicle?

Reply to
Jonny
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The J-Ys around here are pretty good about removing the larger components.

Yes it would be good to change out the trans oil while it is out.

I personally do not like the 4 speed inline transmissions for longevity, but I think you will be fine.

good luck!

Reply to
One out of many Daves

Thanks for replying.

Got the replacement yesterday evening. No axles came with it. Speedometer cable snipped off. Clutch "throwout" bearing looks worn, perhaps a little burned; hard to tell. Don't know if they replaced that with the clutch assy on the former tranny. If not, gonna get a new one while the replacement is out of the car. The grease oozing, from the area where the axles were, is very dirty. Guess it wouldn't be bad idea to dig most of out, and smear a handful of new in the tranny axle holes?

Little history on the 88 Fox wagon. Purchased in 92 from used car dealer, had sat in his lot for over 6 months. Had 124K miles on it. Former owner was upstate NY native. In 2000, had transaxle replaced with use one as tired of hearing what sounded like to me a low tone whine/groan/roar sound. Typically associated with worn rear ends, too much play in the pinion gear. Put another 180K miles on it myself. Between 92 and now. Think I'm getting my monies worth.

Reply to
Jonny

Yes you want to make sure that the release bearing, other clutch components, and the pilot bearing are all in good shape. Of course NEW is better! ;-)

Yeah dig out that dirty grease out of the axle flanges. You might want to repack that flange with the proper grease just before the axles get installed.

JMHO

Reply to
One out of many Daves

Be REALLY careful doing that! Dunno about the longitudinal Fox, but the transverse mounted transmissions use platic plugs in the flanges to hold the gear oil in the transmission. Knock a plastic plug loose and you'll have to replace it.

Reply to
tylernt

The one piece Fox tranny/axle has steel drain plug on bottom and steel fill plug on driver's side for tranny.

Reply to
Jonny

Went to buy a new throwout bearing. Parts house said there's a "regular" one and an offset version. Regular one, he said, was ten bucks. Neither were in stock. Long story short, ended up paying 49 bucks for the offset version, that's what it uses. There's no way the clutch fork design can use a throwout bearing that has no input shaft axis angular allowance for movement (standard bearing). Made me want to choke the guy who wrote the parts database.

Reply to
Jonny

That is certainly true. However, there are also plastic plugs in the middle of the output flanges -- at least there are on A1 transverse mounted trannies.

Reply to
tylernt

You will want to clean ALL the old grease out of the trans as well as the axles prior to assembly.

Repack each (according to the steps in the Bentley, you do have one Right?)

Mixing two different brands/formulas of bearing grease can cause a breakdown in effectiveness, leading to a shorter life and failure of lubrication.

Besides, just topping it off while the thing is apart is giving all your hard work and money short shrift when you consider taking the damned thing apart to re-repair something.

TBerk

Reply to
TBerk

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