I remember someone had done this in the past. Just wanted to know if the shiftforks that the shifter sits in had to be changed out also. Everything else appears to be a match but we are having trouble with it centering. Looks to be rubbing on the shifter forks.

Thanks,
James

 

What not to do at the track...



A little closer look at my super clean break of the output shaft...




How you don't want your car to look the day before a major autocross.....

 

[free bump]
Damn man,

That's some bad luck there..

I hope you can get it running soon.

Jon

[/free bump]

 

Well, further research on here has turned up that my tranny doesn't support the tailshaft swap due to the fact that the forks the shifter actuates are held on by bolts as opposed to roll pins like the later tranny's. You can see this actually on the tranny in the above pics. Here is my question. If I ordered the newer forks that are held on by roll pin, would that solve my problem? It seems like everything else in the tailshaft fits like a charm.

Thoughts?

 

Anyone?

 

Bueller??

 

Bueller???

 

Class??

 

Anyone??

 

Bueller??

 

Sorry dude, I have no idea =)

 

Thanks anyways. At least ya typed something.

I would like to take this moment to say Ben Stein rocks.

Thanks,
James

 

I just performed the exact opposite swap - '85 tailhousing onto an '80 transmission. I also have something like 200 megabytes worth of pictures, still working on choosing which ones go on the website. Now the transmission doesn't scream, and 5th gear is more useable (400-500 more RPM on the highway = less downshifting, less lugging the engine, better MPG)

You *do* need the special, few-months-only, late '80 shift fingers. (I am pretty sure that the shift rod from the lever to the fingers stayed the same for the whole SA run) I don't know if you can still get them from Mazda, so if you can't, you'd have to get a donor transmission. Once you have the donor transmission, easiest thing would be to just stuff *that* in there instead.

Alternatively, you could also try swapping the shift rods/forks from the bad trans to the good, so you'd have an SE transmission with an SA tailhousing and bolt-on shift fingers.

Edit: I just remembered... the speedo gears changed pitch sometime around '81-82ish, I think. Bestest thing to do would be to break out the circlip pliers and change the drive gear on the tailshaft. Just to make super-special sure that the speedo reads the same as before.

 

Well, Mazda had the 1-2 and 3-4 fingers in stock, but the 5-R will not be available until late August or early September. I agree, that if I find a late 80 box, then I would just put that in there instead since the SA's do have a little better gearing IMHO. As it sits, a friend has his courier tranny apart and it used the roll pin fingers that were roughly the same lengths as the 80 bolt on's so I test fitted them and found that they worked great for 1-2 and 3-4, but 5-R was a no go. Since I can't get the right part until September, I just put it back together with the Courier fingers and ran with just 1 thru 4 for now. I had to race her this past weekend and she did fine. I don't really miss 5 since I use her primarily for autox, but no reverse is a pain.

 

Sorry, can't help ya on the tail housing swap, I did the neccessary mod (shortening what needed shortening) to move the shifter forward approx. 4" on an '83 tranny so it would fit my rx3 without having to cut the floor, plus I wanted the short shifter.