Hi,
The truck is an '89 F150 4WD with 302 and a 5-speed manual transmission. I'm assuming it is the Mazda tranny (Mazda M-50D, would this be R1 or R2?), since I did find a picture of the ZF-5 unit and that does not look right. Mine doesn't sound like the typical Mazda problem though, in that it has not been low on fluid. The symptoms are a terrible sound (like a washing machine full of ball bearings) in
3rd gear. Fourth and fifth are fine, but third sounds ugly. Is this a common problem with these? All I find on usenet is the draining issue and references to it being a bad/weak transmission with no other specifics.I'm also seeing references to the ZF-5 as being "bullet proof" but was told that they cannot be (easily?) swapped. Is this true? I'm guessing that major transmission work would exceed blue-book on the truck, but do like the truck other than that. Anybody know any other options? I'm in the midwest so manual transmissions are in short supply (so a junkyard tranny probably can't be found even if I would trust it) and I don't know of a major rebuilder (such as Jasper) within a few hundred miles.