My tranny has been giving me 2nd and 5th gear trouble...and its time for a rebuild. I am facing several issues in making a decision. The first threashold decision is where and who should do the work. Local shops may not be competent enough, but shipping the tranny to a specialist might be cost prohibitive in terms of shipping and rebuild cost.

Once specialist quoted me a price of close to 1000, but that may include parts...im not sure. I found one local shop that will charge 7 hrs of labor at 70 per hour. Thats almost 500 just in labor. Then we got to tag on mazda deler parts cost. Is this reasonable? I would remove and install the tranny myself.

What have your experiences been with tranny rebuilds? With specialists and/or local tranny shops?
-a

 

I'd just buy a good used tranny if I were you.

 

Has anyone actually had rebuilds done?
-a

 

I'm working on tearing down my spare, but I'm not going too quickly since the tranny on the car is in good shape. Any horror stories I run into, I'll let you guys know. Right now I'm at the point where I need to get off my *** and get a mainshaft "pusher" tool to continue...

 

I had the tranny in my 92' Prelude rebuilt by a friend of the family, the guy just rebuilds them in his personal shop. For about a grand he replaced all the gears, brass, and sliders, then deburred and polished everything for me. basically it was a race build up for cheaper than a standard rebuild. That thing was amazing, you couldn't shift to fast for the tranny, it's like it was begging to be abused, 13second timeslips and launches on the bottle could not hurt the thing, drove perfect for 15k when my car got stolen, then it was sold to a fellow preluder and we're going to be installing it in his supercharger car and lauching on slicks...

RX-7 experience, well I've got one bad one on the side of my house and 3rd is pretty bad on the current one, I'm also working on an M90 project so.... when I blow this up and have him build it for me I'll tell you all exactly what a well built NA tranny can take.

 

Hm. I've been debating getting mine rebuilt, the 3rd gear synchro is going out (downshifting into 3rd on the highway requires double clutching or takes a LONG time). I'm probably just going to deal with it though, since I can't afford the car as is. :-/

-=Russ=-

 

Our transmissions are pretty simple assemblies. I've been planning on rebuilding mine myself after I get the time to finish all of my suspension and brake mods.
Anyone know of a place where I can buy all the parts that need to be replaced besides the dealer?

 

Finding the parts to use to rebiuld the transmission is all that is stopping me from trying

 

AusTexRex: Do a somewhat careful search on transmission rebuilds and you should come across a link to a Las Vegas tranny shop that sells rebuild 'kits.' I just formatted my drive and i forgot to save my bookmarks. All i have written down is:

(for NA tranny)
Part #: K100230 Bearings, gaskets, seals $122.82
Synchro Ring kit: $85.00

Sorry, too lazy to look for you.

 

I think pineapple does rebuilds.

 

BAM!

http://www.drivetrain.com/mazdaendload4_5sp.html

 

"I rebuilt my TII transmission. It's a bitch. I was lucky and got the price under 300 bucks. Malloy mazda. Drivetrain.com does not have the right parts. Don't try them." Found that while searching for rebuild prices and parts.
Also found this guy rebuilds the tranny for about 600 http://iscracing.net/clutch.htm
I've read good things about him in a number of threads while searching.

Pineapple Racing also does rebuilds.

 

Personally I would rather have mine rebuilt than buy an used one. At least I know what I have and an idea of what needs to be done. Naturally, if they open trans and it's completely blown, syncros, gears, bearings, etc it would be less expensive to pick up an used one.
I had mine done twice S5TII. Once at 85,000, syncros. This was done by the Mazda dealer under an extended warranty. They removed, rebuild, and installed, total $1200, but I paid $140. The second time at 155,000 when engine was being installed at KD Rotary. Dave charged me $470 for syncros, bearing, and labor. Of couse they pulled the trans with the engine so labor was greatly reduced.

 

Well, since you've had it rebuilt multiple times... what sort of difference does it make in shifting?

-=Russ=-

 

Hmm. If KD can do it for under 500, then thats totaly worth it in my mind.
Thats why I started this post...I would rather know that my tranny is solid, rather than keep swapping in used Jspecs at a few hundred a pop.
-a