Looking for some assistance with my transmission. The input shaft bearing appears to be on its way out so I'd like to pull it apart and put new bearings and syncros in.

Are there any rebuild kits out there? In my searches it appears to either be for the FD trans, or for the NA trans since it lists 83-91 for the age range..

And I'm also looking for a guide or thread for tear-down and reassembly

 

Hey bud,

rebuilding the turbo II transmissions is a piece of cake as long as you have good tools. One thing to note is whether your transmission is for an s4 or s5. They differ slightly in the front bearings, and have different overdrive gears in the back.

The tools you will absolutely need to have are a good set of interior and exterior snap-ring pliers. Don't get the cheap kind that have replaceable tips or are made of sheet metal unless you want hours of frustration instead of 30 seconds to remove a snap-ring correctly.

You will also need a puller capable of clamping and pulling on the sides of the two front ball bearings as shown in the FSM. If you try to use a regular puller, it will continually slip off and damage the thin snap ring that surrounds those bearings, leaving you frustrated and worse off than when you started. It has to be able to clamp on hard on the sides so there is little room for the snap ring to flex. It is the only way to get ahold of those bearings to pull them. If you have questions on this part, take pictures and post them here, and we can help. Its better to do this step correctly first, because it will save you so much time and headache. After doing one the wrong way, I can tell you that it is hours faster to do it the right way, plus you don't say as many bad words.
As far as a guide to disassemble and reassemble, the factory manual pretty well has it covered. It's very detailed. The main two sticking points are making sure you have good tools, and the correct style bearing puller (you may have to modify one to work). You can make a tool to go on the output shaft to hold things in place, but its just as easy to lock the transmission in two gears for the step where you need it not spinning.

You can get the synchros and bearings from Mazda still, or you could a couple years ago. I got the bearing kit from Transparts Warehouse (mind the spelling in this day and age on the internet), and picked up the synchros from Mazda.

Let us know if you have any questions and we can make this quick and easy for you

 

short response:

make sure to have a system in place to lay out each transmission part on a table in a easy to follow format later for reassembly.

long response:

Swapped gearsets and shafts on a ford ranger transmission when a junkyard sent me a 4wd trans when the truck was 2wd.

Disassembled the first trans thinking I laid out the parts in enough detail, only to find I was wrong.

Second trans I laid out a few tables, and removed each part and laid each part in the same orientation as it was removed from the trans, with a new row on the table corresponding to each shaft.

after being more organized on the disassembly, reassembly was a breeze. Self explanatory disassembly/assembly as long as you pay attention.

sorry somewhat useless post but I learned the hard way.

 

the other part, parts. Mazda makes their own transmissions, which is a little unusual. this means that while they buy the bearings from Koyo or NSK, the rest of it is Mazda.
Mazda does not do rebuild kits, everything must be purchased separate. people will put together bearing kits, and these usually are using cheaper bearings

the T2 transmission, Mazda calls it the R type, was used in some 1980's Fords (Ranger and Aerostars), as well as the FD and 929/MPV and such. so sometimes you can find synchros aftermarket

if you need help with part numbers, either post it here or shoot me a PM, there are a lot of parts in there!

 

I appreciate the quick replies everyone. I know my dad has a nice pair of snap-ring pliers he uses for HVAC work. I'll see about getting a puller.



Quick and dirty picture of my bay. I'm pretty sure this is a S4 transmission when looking at the ribs? I'll be honest I want to be as lazy as possible here so If its possible to replace just the input shaft bearing, I'd like to go that route.

 

Since I just finished...

Fully agree with comments on pullers. In addition to a puller that can pull on the bearings' snap-rings VERY securely, the puller has to be VERY long in a couple of instances. So whatever you buy or fabricate, make sure you have the ability to change lengths easily, such as via flat bar extensions.

Some other tips...
A few parts are nearly symmetrical, with only a very inconspicuous bevel added to determine correct orientation. Direction definitely matters in several cases, such as the clutch hub.
I used a box of ziploc bags and numbered the parts inside per the FSM.
Bearing kits are still easily available from several aftermarket sources for the T2 trans. I received guidance stating not to use the aftermarket synchros, and was pointed toward a kit that comes without them.
Some synchros are NLA from Mazda, but have superseding part numbers. Some of those synchros are still available in Japan via sites like Amayama (which I ended up using).
Torque matters! Some tolerances are down to a gnats ***... like .004, and depend on proper torque.

In addition to the puller(s) and snap ring pliers... vernier calipers, bearing installers, a spare driveshaft yoke, feeler gauges, a shop press, torque wrenches, are needed.

Now I have a spare set of late S5 gears!

 

Yeah you can stop disassembling at any point and start assembling again.
I needed to change 2nd gear syncro which is at the very end, but input shaft bearing should be quite at the begining look into the FSM.

As a litte help, I put all the gears, bearings and just all the stuff that belongs together from each shaft , on a welding wire in the right order and orientation when laying them on a table.
So there are no questions when reassembling

 

Back to the top! Any chance you guys who have rebuilt them in your garage, messed around with changing gear ratios? I'm going to attempt my trans rebuild soon?

 

The only gear you could possibly change is 5th gear, and its not worth your time, because your only options are the S4 or S5 OD gears. The countershafts are fixed gears. If you want to go messing with gear ratios, you'll have to get a tremec or some sort of aftermarked transmission.

 

yep. I used the OSGiken gears... huge change.