So, i fancied an LSD this month, my gearbox is knackered in the fiesta apparently pulling your friend all the way from southend on sea to south wales using only A roads has a negative effect, finally busting out an end of all revs and 5th gead wheelspin in the ice will cook your bearings on the end of the main shaft and around the diff,


i bought a gearbox off "cookie" and i got a limited slip diff of my mate (from an s2 escort turbo),
so i figured great, open the gearbox pull it appart, out with the slipp diff in with the limited slip diff

oh boy was i wrong,


so firstly removing the oil from the box easy, just pop out the remainders of any cv joints / drive shafts, rest the box on its side over a wall and catch dripping oil in a biscuit tub

couple hours later i stopped dripping, time to dismantle,
whip off the very outer cover, just a few not so tight bolts,
here you will find mr 5th gear and syncro
undo a torx screw here take off a springy selector thing there, bash out a circlip there minding not to blind you self
voila your just left with one last cog which seems to be very stubborn,

so a quick little trip down to halfords to grab a gear puller,
back home to the gearbox assemble the gear puller it has 8 different combinations, none of them fit,
time to make my own combination, (just use 2 legs) the gear-puller drops off, back to 3 legs flip one upside down great it fits, get the blow tourche out heat the cog up and hopefully it will just slip off,

wrong! the gear puller snaps game over for tongiht the gearbox wins,

the next day back to halfords with the receit hello this tool broke id like another,

back to the gearbox, again this tool doesnt fit, out comes the angle grinder 5 minutes later the tool fits, out with the blow touch again, and pop off comes 5th gear,

finally i can serperate the middle case to reveal the gears, and the standard diff,

a close inspection of the magnet reveals that this gearbox has had a few crunches as theres a couple of teeth stuck to it haha, i hope there not important

so now im thinking great out with the old diff in with the lsd,

i lift up all the gears and selector and manage to wiggle the standard diff out without upsetting any of the gear selectors and squeeze the lsd in, but it just doesn't seem to fit right (its a series 2 escort turbo lsd it has 8 bolts its been in a fiesta box before it should fit), its grinding on the case as i turn all the gears around,

out with all the gears and selectors a couple of circlips here and a tug there, the lsd diff is out compare it to the original diff and bugger the bearings are smaller on the lsd,

a quick call to newoods
"Newood Transmissions - Essex Gearbox repairs specialists
Automatic & Manual Gearboxes Exchanged, Reconditioned Units, Axle / Overdrive Specialists, Clutches Fitted, Differentials, Prestige Car Specialists. gearbox ...
http://www.newoodtransmissions.co.uk/ -"

confirms that there are 2 types of bearings big ones and small ones,
now he has the gearbox its his problem to make the diff fit

apparently you cant just take the bearings from one diff and fit them to another diff, you have to cut the old ones off and press the new ones on,
also you cant just do that, you also have to re-shim the diff so that it sits snug in the box otherwise "it will wobble around in there"


damnit i was hoping the strip the box fit the diff put it back together jack the car up take the old box off and have lsd fitted by this evening argh

TBC..........

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buttery biscuit boost

sounds like you had a fun day but at least its given you some experience in stripping a gearbox, i'm not so sure i'd be that brave and jump right in

when should you have your diff back?

i had a scrap gearbox in the garage and couple of month ago thought i would open it up for the experiance to see what it would be like to fit a LSD in mine, when i split it and pulled it apart a couple of bits just fell apart from somewere. it was ok to get apart but i would have had no hope in getting it back together and running again. in light of this im just considdering fitting a complete RS escort LSD gearbox

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Will

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buttery biscuit boost

i am still baffled by this gearbox, i have now worked out how all the gear selectors go back together, and i have found that if i put it in reverse and put it back together (minus 5th gear) gears 1 2 3 4 can be selected, i can also engage reverse however,
when i put the box into neutral the diff still spins around when you turn the main shaft,
(maybe the gears are still slightly engaged cause its all kinda loose and they have been washed when i got the diff shimmed)
also when i put the box into reverse i cant seem to turn the box round as in it just seems wedged?

i have put some some pics maybe someone can spot the error, it looks exactly like all the other images of gearboxes but it just seems to be wedged,
Maybe someone can shed some light on the problem, the only thing i can possibly think of is that maybe because i havent pulled it all together tight the syncros haven't disengaged properly on the gears?

which could explain why reverse seemed wedged, argh

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buttery biscuit boost

Finally the Box is rebuilt with shiney new bearings

It seems that i was correct, when i was engagin the gears without the middle casing on there was to much play as the housings hold everything nice and close, so as a result it wasnt disengaging one of the gears as i was trying another gear, this created a confict when i engaged reverse as i was trying to spin the mainshaft in the oppostire direction using the reverse gear yet another gear probably 1st was still partially engaged, anyways, the box is back together, all gears can be selected however reverse seems a little iffy, the box seems stiff to, probably cause the guys at newood completly cleaned the box out and degreased everything (as you can kidna see by the pics)

so heres what i learnt haha

To remove the 5th gear from an ib5 gearbox either get the correct 5th gear puller from ford or buy a halfords gear puller and use an angle grinder to shave a few mm of the bottom of the legs, i used a cloth between the two 5th gear cogs to hold it still whilst i was doing up the gear puller i also used a blow tourch on the cog up as it comes off easier (some how)

circlip pliers are very handy if like me youve lost yours, get 2 pairs of pliers handy and a swiss army knife, using a series of combinations all the C clips will come off eventually, just make sure to catch them

once you have cracked the box open to reveal the gooey goodness of ancient gearbox oil and shards of gears, you wil find a magnet will shards of reverse and 5th gear attached to it, take this out and clean it haha.

the easiest was to get all the gears out is to remove the 2 c clips on the gear selector shaft and pull the whole lot out, (its heavy ish)

finally the diff comes out you can just pick it up

if you are fitting an lsd like me you need to check the bearings are the right size there are 2 types small ones and big ones,
if you have the wrong bearings, you need to angle grind them off and press new ones on, but its not that simple the new diff will need shimming out to fit the box else your diff will just wobble about (this is what the guy at the transmission place told me)

for as little as £50 this service can be done just take your 2 big casings and 2 diffs down to your local transmission place and £50 its best to get this done by the pro's as they know what there doing,


Things to remember when re-assembling the box,

take note of where everything went, (i didnt so i wasnt sure but after a quick google images i found what i was looking for)
the gear linkage probably wont work very well when the casing is off so as long as it looks exacly how it did when you took it appart it will probably be fine when you put it back together.

engage reverse gear when you put the box together and do not let the selector shaft move around if it moves you could end up loosing reverse (my friend did this so i paid extra attention to reverse) i actually used mole grips on the little selecto stub sticking out the box to make sure it didnt move,

do not reuse the old gaskets they are probably knackered for £8 new ones can be had off ebay

make sure to put all circlips back on and double check the box before putting 5th back on

do not let the springs ping out of the 5th gear synco they are a pain in the arse to get back in


finally when the box is all back together, when you go tp hammer 5th gear back on, support the main shaft underneith with a block of wood or something otherwise you will hammer to crap out of the shaft bearings and probably shorten there life expectancy

I HOPE I NEVER HAVE TO DO THAT AGAIN

now just waiting for my black diamond clutch and i can fit the box on and enjoy the benefits of LSD

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buttery biscuit boost

in you honest opinion, would you do it all again or recomend buy a complete LSD gearbox for £150? one good thing of what you done is you know you got a good gearbox now

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Will

Well as long as it works once I've put it in it will be well worth the trouble, I now know that the box is all good, all the nastys that wear the bearings down have been cleaned out and its got brand new diff bearings, tbh I would rather have bought an lsd for 150£ but it might have been shagged. So yeah probably well worth it in the long run .

i could almost says its reconditioned

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buttery biscuit boost

i finally fixed reverse today, took the casing off the side of the box slackened the reverse selector shaft gave it a twist with a flat head driver and done it up again and voila, reverse is back again, it was only out by 3 degree's anti clockwise, woohoo
now im an ib5 jedi haha

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buttery biscuit boost

Just a minor update, gearbox has been running mint,
defianatly worth it,
however on a slightly different but similar note,
black diamond clutch is a big pile of crap
i bought the xr2i one and the pressure plate feels less than the previous standard clutch (which was a valeo) i complained to black diamond who said speak with the people whole sold you the clutch (larkspeed) they stated no returns
so im stuck with this crappy clutch that slips when you try a "fast launch" or try and leave a set of 11's hrmph
stay away from black diamond

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buttery biscuit boost

still think your a brave man to take the box aprt, but damn good work on getting it back together and working properly again

i never had an issue with my black diamond clutch, but i drove my Si like a girl! baz with his white S2 has/had one and he gave that clutch death every week and it was still going until he swapped engines

think people all had different experiances with 'uprated' clutches some with no problems others say no better than a standard one. I got throught two cheap clutches in 1000miles before buying a Helix Group N one @£280! not cheap but 5 track days later still great

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Will

perhaps i am a tad crazy but this is how we learn right, i don't think i'm up for a complete strip down and full rebuild of the box that does look complicated pulling off the individual gears n syncro's, i guess if i had the right tools i'd give it a try if a set of straight cut gears came up cheap,

black diamond are a let down, they claimed there clutch was a "power clutch" with uprated organic friction material and uprated pressure plate and yet it slips and my car is only around the 120brake mark, the clutch feels like a standard one,
i steered clear of techniclutch () cause i read of there were many issues with em, now i wish i had tried there clutch as
one fitted in my friends puma powered fiesta actually feels like a fast road clutch its on or off the biting point is like learners hell haha

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buttery biscuit boost

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buttery biscuit boost