Tranny Troubles - oh dear, what to do, what to do?

[Guest Anonymous]

URL: http://www.zeebuck.com/02bc/

Esteemed gruppe,

In my seemingly never ending preparations for the drive from BC to CO, today I endeavoured to replace the guibo, c.b. and all the other related stuff. Unfortunately, I have discovered that my tranny has the dreaded "Worn Splines of Death" and is essentially toast. The splines on the output flange are about 1/16" wide now and the flange is really loose even when the nut is fully tight - no wonder the rear seal leaked profusely...

Now, I suppose the quickest course of action would be to install another good 4sp. Unfortunately, I don't have one handy and am not sure about procuring one in time.

I do have another '73 tranny in my parts car that was OK but had crappy 2nd and 3rd syncros when the car was decomissioned 6 years ago, and I also have a tranny from a 75 that has a cracked rear cover, owing to a loose guibo bolt. This tranny supposedly was quiet and had good syncros before the incident. The '75's input shaft seems to wobble around a fair bit - is this normal, or is the input bearing toast?

I have never had a BMW tranny out before (and that is in 16 years of '02 ownership!)

Ideally, I would like to try to use the '75 tranny and just swap over the rear cover from the my '73. Can this be done? Will it mess up the engagement of the gears? Are there any parts, other than the gasket and seals, that will need to be replaced during the rear cover exchange?

If any local (greater vancouver) '02 types happen to have a serviceable tranny for cheap or free, please don't be shy!

All help is appreciated!

regards,

Zenon

[Guest Anonymous]

Hi.

Don't know if thiss will answer your question or not, but here goes.

A couple of years ago my 02 spat one of the bearings inside, causing one of the shafts to drop and chew off first gear. The bearing cracked and the BBs fell out. Anyways, we had a spare big splined gbox (lil spline one was one that broke) so we went to fit it, and realised we had no rear output flange. Priced at BMW, was like $750 Aussie, like 385us at the time. So we took the broken box and the phat shaft one to a gear box place, and they used the good shafts out of the big spline box, synchros from broken box (they were fine) and reassembled to give a working fine spline box, and it went great, and everyone lived happily ever after until I killed it again

Was on long trip, and synchro on 2nd just disappeared, and box got louder and louder, til we thought we should replace it. Don't know if this was due to my driving, or the reduced lifespan of the repair process. Most likely my driving.

Hope this goes some way to answering your question.

oh yeah, was about $280 aussie, inc new bearings, @ about $40 an hour labour.

Michael S.

73 chamonix, on its 4th gearbox, 2nd head, needing new head gasket

75 inka, haven't owned long enough to kill yet

[Guest Anonymous]

URL: http://www.zeebuck.com/bimmers/bmvseite/headlinerclean.htm

Well, it looks like swapping the rear cover of a tranny is not a quick and easy job, since the tranny is basically built from the rear cover out!

However, it looks like my car will be getting a decent replacement tranny after all.

Gil and Al have both offered me useable and **free** trannies, Gil is bringing one over from Victoria tomorrow!

Thanks guys!

Zenon

[Guest Anonymous]

As per the post below, I swapped a good main shaft from an older tranny (weird synchros) into a later tranny, using new bearings and synchros. Works fine, there's nothing like a fresh built box.