kyalami

Quick one from todays test drive after sorting through various problems…

Lol yeah I just realized that myself…. It has been a long week and my brain isn’t working. Clearly must have been a 24mm as Preyupy mentioned…

🤷🏼

Yup - it’s a 27mm on my car. My 1in ring wrench ground down worked just fine despite being a tad big. Fortunately Ireland marked it when they shortened it, so all good there.

That's the one! Thank you! I was way off... looks like I need a 27mm 12 point.

I can't believe I'm needing to ask this but I can't find anything via search either here or Google. What size is the bolt to split the driveshaft in the center? Looks like a 21mm or 22mm and you need to likely modify the wrench to get it to fit? While I have the driveshaft out, I'm finally getting around to replacing the CSB that has been sitting in the garage for years... Jason

Alright, just wanted to circle back and close this one out in case this info is of interest to anyone else down the line. Thanks a ton for all the input here because I found out a few important things along the way that I didn't know previously... Turns out the problem was all with the shift linkage platform. I had originally ground out some metal from the rail to make space for the linkage, but I needed to take a whole bunch more to make space for the DSSR which was hitting on the rail. See attached photo. Ireland does advertise this platform with a "strong recommendation to use their short shifter" and this is the reason why. The bracket on the bottom of theirs is much narrower than the Z3 shifter - even though their instruction manual shows images using the Z3 with the DSSR - presumably before they offered their custom shifter. Live and learn - it's all silky smooth now and I'm looking forward to the test drive when the weather turns...

I think you might be right Lorin. I overhauled the whole shift platform 2 yrs ago, and it went from being sloppy (but 100% functional) to exceptionally tight. I just removed the snap ring on the top of the shifter housing on the inside, and I can now get it in 5th just fine. I wonder if this has been the root cause of everything all along and my alignment is just out of whack...

Alright... slowly working to eliminate what is working fine to get to the bottom of this. I replaced the master cylinder just to be sure, and reverse bled the system. When I put it in any gear with the clutch in, the wheels don't turn, and the clutch starts to engage about half way out. So the hydraulics are working fine. I also replaced the oil with ATF, but I'll have to wait for better weather to take it out to test how much difference that makes. I forgot about this symptom until I started working on this again, but I'm hoping someone might have a confident opinion here. When I have it in neutral, and the clutch pedal pushed in, and I push the gear lever over towards 5th, it is fine. When I have the clutch out, and I push the lever over, there is a high pitched gear grinding going on indicating that something is engaging while it's in neutral. It doesn't do that when I move it in the reverse / 1/2/3/4 range, just when I push it over a bit further. What the heck is that all about? This is where I wish my knowledge of gearboxes was better. What gears could be engaging when it feels like it's in neutral, and the wheels are not spinning? Any thoughts on that??

Gotcha. I'm not aware of a preferred vendor for new wheels unless you're looking for something very specific like H&B - so you'll likely need to get them from wherever makes sense...

Yeah, for our cars these days you're going to probably need to do some research depending on what you like. It also really depends on how deep down the rabbit hole you are wanting to go. What wheels do you currently have on your car, and what are you looking to achieve with new ones? There are no shortage of opinions here to help guide you, but if you'd like some advice, tell us a bit more about what you're looking to get out of the exercise. Personally, I was looking for a perfect balance of performance and aesthetic, which lead me down a path of rebuilding a set of 15in BBS RS's with a custom staggered offset. That was over 10yrs ago and I've forgotten the exact specs, but generally you're going to max out with a 7.5in wide wheel on stock fenders - 7in is safer.... and I'd need someone else here to remind me of offsets because I just don't remember...

Touche New master and slave on the way from Pelican...

I bled my system twice with the power bleeder, and it still feels like it has air in it... but I'm also not completely sure that my slave is working properly.

Yup - its confusing to me too after looking at the tech drawing, and I was thinking the same thing. He might not be correct on this one... after all it's just an opinion. He was speaking from experience that when they build their's, they flip them upside down because their success rate at bleeding them is higher, and there is also more space in the tunnel on 5spd conversions. Personally, I am going to skip all that... pull the slave off the transmission... hold the whole system vertically and hand bleed it so that I can feel the action myself. I think that's really the only sure-fire way of knowing the air is all out.

Alright... I should have done this years ago instead of trying to do this myself, but I spoke to Joe at Metric Mechanic this morning and this is what I found. Firstly, as some of you mentioned, you can't use the standard MTL or MT90 in Metric Mechanic transmissions. It's too thick, and it causes issues with shifting because the oil sits on the surface and essentially gets in the way of the synchro's and the bearings. You have to use ATF, and he has an interesting story on that that came from Dinan almost 40 yrs ago. Second, he mentioned that the bleed valve on the slave needs to be up and not down - so the opposite of the way it is installed at the factory. He was actually pretty fired up about that one, and had some good reasoning as to why it just doesn't work when installed down per the factory. I am going to replace the fluid with ATF this weekend, and hand-bleed the slave by pulling it out. I'll report back on the results, but Joe was confident that would solve all the issues I've been having. RE: the popping out of 2nd, he said that it due to the shift boot acting as a rubber band, and particularly in 2nd. I have a commonly used remanufactured part, and it is really stiff, so when I pulled it out, it makes sense why the problem was solved. Thanks again all!

I thought the same thing at the start of this trouble-shooting because that was the original (and at the time only) problem I was trying to solve. However, the combination of freshening up the shift linkages and changing the fluid definitely solved the problem of it popping out of 2nd. Even with the current issues I'm experiencing, it doesn't pop out of gear any more... so I think part of the problem is finding the right oil (I'm going to call MM tomorrow on that) and the grinding is probably hydraulics. But I appreciate the input, and I'll do some research on that fluid because I've never heard of it...

Yeah I have a feeling there is something not right about the clutch disengagement. I'm pretty sure the clutch master is original, and I don't know about the slave, so I might just replace both along with all the lines and the transmission fluid to rule that out. I'll keep you all posted... and again, I appreciate the guidance!

Thank you all... I figured you'd have some things to try that will likely be better places to start before pulling the gearbox out. I'm going to start by trying a thinner oil, and then I'll look at the other suggestions until I've exhausted those options. Appreciate the direction! Jason

Mike - yes I replaced the entire shift platform with new parts; bushings, shifter, DSSR, all of it. It has been in the car 3 yrs, but has less than 200mi. Same with the oil. I did need to modify the bracket when I installed it by grinding a portion out of the right rail because there was nowhere near enough space for the linkage to clear the bracket. That was a bit of a red flag because my experience with Ireland parts is that they work great - so maybe I need to re-look at that. But again, it worked well before, and now it doesn't and the mounts still look solid. I'll try replacing the oil with MTL and see what that yields. I too was surprised at how much smoother it was when I originally put the MT90 in though... and that oil only has about 200mi on it.

Hi all I've been dark on here for a while, but after a few years of sporadic trying to figure this out on my own, I'm needing to reach out to see if anyone has any thoughts. I'm going to try to make a long story short here... Many years ago, I picked up a used Metric Mechanic 5sp OD transmission, and right from the beginning had issues with it. Initially, it popped out of 2nd unless I pulled the shift lever back, but the other gears worked fine. I ended up overhauling the shift platform with a Blunt Tech unit, Z3 shift lever, and Ireland DSSR selector rod. At the same time, I replaced the input shaft seal because that was leaking, and I flushed the transmission fluid. Initially, that seemed to work great. All gears shifted smoothly, and while reverse was a little sticky, I managed to get that in gear after a few tries, and it no longer popped out of 2nd. After letting the car sit for about 4 months after being busy, I went to go out for a drive and couldn't get it into reverse no matter how much I tried. I eventually pushed it out the garage and went out for a drive, and found that in addition to reverse being impossible, it was grinding between all gears except for 1st and 5th. Between the car working fine, and this, I didn't touch anything. Over the weekend, I bled the clutch hoping to find a bunch of air in it that would explain some of this, but no, it was dirty but zero air bubbles. Before I yank the whole thing out and send it back to Metric Mechanic for a rebuild, I thought I'd reach out here for any thoughts. Should I take one more crack at adjusting the shift platform? Flush the Transmission fluid and try something else (It has Redline MT90 right now)? Replace the slave cylinder in case that has gone bad? It makes no sense to me why something that previously worked, now all of a sudden has so many issues... Any thoughts anyone can share here? Thanks so much in advance!

Thanks for the reply's guys. Much appreciated. I didn't actually realize there there were two different aluminum grills, so that is good to know. Jason

Hi guys After hitting a deer on the passenger side, I am looking for either a passenger side aluminum grill, or a set, depending on condition and availability for my '73 tii. I'm looking for something that is in as good original condition as possible with all the black metal covers. My car has mostly original parts on, and I would prefer something in excellent condition that shows it's age with a little patina as opposed to new/fully restored. Attached are photos of the drivers side grill that I'm looking to match. Please email me if you have something that might work: jason dot hill dot sf at gmail dot com. Thanks much for your help! Jason