As most of you know, a few months ago I put in a Quaife differential in my 5 speed while changing my clutch. Then second gear decided to blow up on me a few weeks later. Whose fault it was is beside the point in this post. Upon opening the transmission again, second gear was completely toast. Due to the design of the transmission, 2nd gear requires the entire input shaft to be replaced, but only the gear to be replaced on the main/output shaft. Since those were blown up, the synchros were also probably blown up too. Finding out the costs of the parts, this left me in a very difficult position.
If I bought new parts it would be $220 for the input shaft alone, and at least $90 for 2nd gear. This would NOT include synchros or bearings or anything else. Ontop of that, I would need to buy special tools in order to press off and repress the parts apart and together. This would be alot of work.

My second option was to buy a completely new transmission, but at $2200 this option quickly was fuled out. My third option was to buy a used transmission, but a search of www.car-part.com yielded the cheapest one to be $650 and I still wouldnt know its condition.

My final option was more crazy, on www.car-part.com I found 2 listings for 2 broken transmissions at the same junkyard. Calling the place didnt reveal much, they told me the cases were split on both. They didnt know what the condition of the parts inside were, but would take $250 for either transmisssion. This junkyard was 250 miles away, past Richmond Virginia. I live close to the deleware line in Maryland, so it was a haul. I saw I really didnt have much option, so I woke up early yesterday and drove my mom's Camry 250 miles one way to Virginia. I took the gamble that both transmissions may be a piece of junk with no useable parts, but I wasnt going to have them ship it for me to find that out. After getting thru Washington DC traffic, when I finally got to the junkyard, I had a look after watching them use those EZ car crusher things. Both transmissions were broken alright, with one looking alot better then the other. Both were already on the "shelf". The crappier one looked like it was sitting outside for a while and might have had high miles on it. Looks like someone forklifted the thing and gouged the F outta the underside. Upon further investigation, the better looking one only had 16,000 miles on it. The case was split open right at the drivers side driveshaft input. This was most likely from the impact of the crash tearing the driveshaft out. Or who knows, maybe this was the car that was used in the IIHS offset crash tests. In any case, they allowed me to dissassemble the transmission to check the guts. While taking apart the transmission i couldnt help but notice how clean everything was. The bronze on the bolts were still there. Looking inside, wow I thought this thing was clean. The cleaner magnet at the bottom didnt have any shard of metal on it at all, a good sign. Inspecting the gears and other parts everything appeared to look perfect. Infact, this 16,000 mile transmission looks alot better then my 67,000 mile transmission. Had the case not been busted this thing would probably go for $1200.

Upon deciphering the VIN number, this transmission was also from a 97. my car is a 97 so that also worked. I suppose I could Carfax the VIN to see what mileage it was wrecked but theres really no point in doing so now.

I got extremely lucky with this catch. Everything I needed worked out well and I have a pretty much new transmission for only $250. If I decide to keep the car, I'm getting the guts cryo treated for strength. now all I gotta do, is transfer most of the guts to my old case, reshim the clearances and put the car back together.

OK before anybody flames me, there is NOTHING in this post to be flamed about. This is purely an informative post, so if you got somethin negative to say, dont say it at all.

 

Way to go!

 

Good luck with it. I'm glad to see at least one of them made the 250 drive worth it. I was wondering how it had turned out. PLese keep us posted, and smap some pics of it all if you can.

 

Yes, I would like to see some pics of an open 97 transmission (gutted and fully assembled).

 

I was wondering if there was some way to reinforce your gears. Maybe level 10 or some equivalent?

 

For pics go to www.motorvate.ca and http://www.geocities.com/ericdwong/project1/ has pics. I have more pics on the way as well from this last dissassembly.

As for strength, cryo treatment can be used to strengthen pretty much anything that is metal. go to www.cryoplus.com or www.onecryo.com for more info on cryo treatment.

 

but dont get burnt out.. I dont know if others are like me, but after enough tranny stuff you just get sick of it - the shops outrageous prices keep sounding better the longer you are in there...

 

Good to see your getting it back up and running...



BTW I love the great updates!

Good information.

 

nice post eric. this is the stuff that we like to see. hope it all works out and you stay around.