Hey all,

I have a bit of a mutt of a car. 71 Datsun 510 with an 88 13B swap. Long story short. I had a bad drive shaft u joint cause some probs and it seems to have torn up the Tail Shaft bushing in the tranny and along with it the slip yoke. I have sourced the bushing at both Atkins and Mazdatricks but my question is...has anyone changed one of these before? The manuals are all a bit shy on tranny work as i'm sure you all know. Do I need a special tool? I think I can take off the tail shaft housing without dropping the tranny.

Anyway, if anyone has some info it's much appreciated.

Thanks,

Craig

 

I'm not sure if you can pull the bushing out with the extension housing attached. Replacing it is kind of like replacing a rotor bearing. Even has an alignment notch, IIRC.

To remove the extension housing, you'll need to (1) remove the shifter (obviously), then (2)remove the oval shaped cover and not loose the ball, spring, and other part, then (3) open the cover on the side of the tranny where the shifter ball resides, and (4) push out the roll pin between the block and shift rod. Only then can you unbolt the extension housing and slide it back. But not much room for the shifter parts, so you may have to unbolt tranny from car.

May be forgetting something in between, but that's what I remember.

 

trans needs to come out of the car. other than that, it is just like a rotor/main bearing, presses out and presses in. if you're lucky the old one will hammer out, Mazda's press fit is usually not too tight

 

Thanks, I'm going to try to not drop the tranny. I can lower it a little and loosen the motor mounts and exhaust up front to get the angle. Remember it's a 510. It has a lot more clearance than the rx7 in this set up. I would hate to have to pull the damn clutch out and deal with that. I have a spare tranny. I might practice pulling the tail section off that one at a similar angle.

Biggest concern will be if I can get the shift rod back into the knuckles in that position under a car. And before someones says throw the tail section from the other tranny on, it's a later model trans and the shifter box is 1 1/2-2 inches longer. It won't mate with the current shifter hole in the Datsun. Cause that would have been TOO easy right? sigh.

Thanks all!

C