need advice RE Wrangler transmission overhaul

It takes some expertise to figure out when something in a manual transmission is bent, out of whack, or unusable. For that reason the ideal solution is to find a shop that has rebuilt a number of these boxes before. Fifth and reverse didn't just up and self destruct by themselves, neither did first. There is a bent shift fork or excessive bearing clearance somewhere. If you want to do it yourself, then get a Factory Service Manual for your year vehicle, read the transmission section, and make sure that you can improvise or obtain every special tool that is mentioned. You can buy gears, shafts, small parts kits, etc., lots of times at your local auto parts store. They will know who is a good rebuilder in your area too. I strongly advise farming this work out to someone in-state, just in case you have to sue them. It happens.

The best clutch alignment tool made is the input shaft, sticking out of your transmission. A guy I used to know would take out the input shaft, just to get an alignment tool. This is not recommended for everyone, as they can be tricky to remove and replace. The plastic or metal all purpose alignment tools with the cone to fit in the clutch splines can be made to work, but they are less satisfactory.

Good luck.

Earle

I have had good luck using the clutch jig that comes with the new ones.

A gent posted here recently about using bolts with the heads cut off or I would use threaded rod chunks ground to a bullet end threaded into the engine block to use to feed the bell housing back onto the engine straight and easy.

How was the transmission mount when you took it apart? A blown one will cause your symptoms as well....

'I' personally wouldn't take on a tranny. Too many specialized tools and knowledge involved. However, you might be able to find a tranny that someone has upgraded from maybe....

Mike

I would recommend buying a rebuilt from Advance or AutoZone. I recently had trouble with my TJ tranny and checked price... $900 w/core. My problem turned out to be simple to fix... just a pin in the shift rod. Your's sounds like bigger problems.

Thanks for the suggestion, Bill, but I seem to have a different problem. I have now taken the rear part of the transmission housing off (the part where the 5th gears and the shift column are located. The snap ring was fine, but 5th gear and its counter-gear are all chewed up!

By the way, I REALLY need some HELP!! on one thing: When I removed the rear housing, a steel ball (about 3/8 diameter) fell out of somewhere, and I haven't a clue as to where it came from. If anybody has any ideas, I sure would appreciate hearing them!

Anyhow, I removed the 5th gear from its shaft, and the rest of the transmission seems to be functioning perfectly. I stood there for half an hour, spinning the input and output shafts in each direction, in all possible combinations of gearing, and everything up in the front half of the transmission seems perfectly smooth. But as soon as I put 5th back on, it started seizing up every few revolutions.

The only other thing that I noticed was that the 5th counter-gear seemed to be very loose & wiggley on its shaft, but maybe that's a normal aspect of the synchro-meshing. Does anybody know??

I am really tempted to just re-assemble the transmission without the

Thanks in advance for any suggestions. john w.

P.S. >> One last question: Is it normal for the front input shaft of these transmissions to have a fair amount of runout? I'd estimate that I can wiggle the flywheel end of the input shaft about +/- 1/16 of an inch in each direction -- maybe even a little more.

L.W.(Bill) Hughes III wrote:

Minimum you need the fifth gear idler and the fifth gears, probably the shaft that the idler rides on too. The next step is to price these parts. Be sitting down. The ball probably fell out of the shift mechanism. I imagine it is part of the shift detent, that holds the shifter in gear.

Earle