Well, I've decided it's time to fix my oil leaks. I'm going to pull the motor and try and figure out where all the oil is leaking from. I suspect the OMP, oil filter housing and possibly the oil pan. I'm also going to inspect anything unsusal. I figured since I'd have the motor out that I might as well fix the 5th gear syncro problem in my tranny.

Has anyone done this? What parts do I need and should I do anything else while I'm in there (diff 5th gear?)?

tia,
chris

 

I got mine done at mazda

 

Come on Chris, you know that you liked the smoking from the rear left side. It added character to the RX.

 

LOL... that was ALOT of smoke! I can't even park in anyones driveway becuase I get embarrased about the oil stain I'll leave.

I'm gonna fix her up then take the body down to my friends lift and degrease her underside! She deserves it!

When are you going to come install an S2000 start button for me?

 

I am not for sure if I ever want to involve myself in that task again. It was truely a PITA. But the results were worth it, I guess. But you have the how-to and schematic, don't you? I believe everything is pretty much on there. I don't know I might try and tackle it again, someday. Let me know when you got the ***** to try it...

 

I'm just playing... was it really that hard tho? Ya I got the write up. I've done quite a bit of electrical work and didn't look THAT bad. I'll do it eventually because I like it


back on topic.... noone has done it themselves? I just don't see paying Mazda to do it if I can do it myself!

 

Intense might be able to do it cheaper than Mazda. They claim they are way better than the dealer too. But this still doesn't let you know how hard it is.

 

I've done a lot of my own work and this is one job that looks like a major pita..........I've learned to live with it for years by double clutching and rev matching - shifts like buttah as long as you're not in a big hurry! Mine's going to wait for that fatefull day when the engine and tranny need to come out for more important stuff. I've got the repair parts stashed except for the new O rings and gaskets since I don't want them to dessicate while sitting around.
(I also had the local Q lube flush the case about three times with fluid to get all the old metal parts outta there)
Jay here in Tucson will get you for about $1K to fix it . It only takes about 20 minutes to repair once it's out of the car but there is a ton of labor involved getting it on the bench and then back in! Your oil leaks are relatively easy to chase down. Don't forget to replace the "O" ring UNDER the housing where the filter mounts. Easy to do and ALWAYS a culprit if it has not been done.
BTW, you can fix all of them easily with the motor still in place!

 

Ya... most of the time I doesn't grind. I've got this thing where if move the stick all the way to the right (while in nutral) and then bring it back to the sweet spot it will slide into 5th like it was nothing. I just figured if I had the engine out of the car it would be easy at that point to pull the tranny. Might as well fix it while I'm at it. That way I don't have to worry about it at all! Like you said... I heard it dosen't take long to fix at all.. it's just the labor of getting it out. I'd hate to have to drive up to Tuson w/ a tranny if it's an easy job. As for the oil leaks. It's just so damn cramed in there I can't tell what the hecks going on. All the oil is running down to the pan too so I can't tell if the pan is actually leaking also. I can see wet lines when looking at the dip stick area. It's possible there is a leak there. Whats the "O" ring thing your talking about? You mean the o-ring under the filter? Where the filter meets the housing? I guess it's possible but when I had it checked out before I bought it (Berge Mazda by Mike) he said there we're a few oil leaks... OMP, oil filter side somwhere... and possibly the pan. He said nothing to worry about.. just messy and it would require a motor pull to fix right. I don't mind taking down the car and this way I'll get a chance to fix anything else that might be messed up. Sounds like a fun project to me! Thats why I got the car!

 

I think you should let it smoke.

 

If ur wanting to take the motor out for the experience thats one thing. But w/ spring just right arnd the corner if ur biggest concern is fixing the leaks as quick as possible I wld suggest degreasing it first. It will be alot easier to see where its leaking from I think.

Gdluck!

ps- if u get an answer to ur 5th gear synchro question lemme know cuz Ive been wanting to fix that too.

 

The O ring is located where the housing meets the motor. They get cooked pretty easily. The housing is easy to take off - it just unbolts.

 

I had it done at a shop, that and the install of my new clutch and they charged me for 10.2 hours of work.

I'm guessing doing it yourself is at least twice as long. Unless you can fairly say you have all the tools a mechanic has.

 

I just got done replacing the 5th gear synchro. Here's the synopsis. If you have a lift and the special tools, piece of cake. Now, since no one has all that, if it's warm out and you have decent tools, not too bad. You will need a long *** puller for the bearing on the rear of the trans (I fabbed extensions out of angle iron to make an autozone rental puller work) and about 12" of socket extensions for a 14mm socket to get the bellhousing bolts, and you can "link up" a couple 14mm open ended wrenches to get the top two bolts out of the bellhousing. You don't need a tranny jack (contrary to iluvmyrx7.com) A floor jack is fine, the trans is heavy but not that bad at all really. My garage was broken into in the middle of this project and they stole my floor jack, so my roommate and i just heaved the f*cker up in there to reinstall. I had mine out 2.5 weeks because I'm in school fulltime. I would figure about 20 hours by myself... if you have help maybe 15. You should get the new, upgraded synchro, the new shift gate spring, and maybe a new rear main bearing and definately rear seal. You don't have to pull the pilot bearing (special tool) to replace the front main if you don't want to (I didn't). The throwout bearing should be replaced, and remove it according to the shorter method in the manual and iluvmyrx7.com. You have to slide a small collar towards the rear of the car, then pry and the bearing will pull right out. Those are all the tricks I can think of, get the case halfs really clean before you gasket them to install, and use Redline tranny fluid, it's better than the big$ valvoline I replaced it with. Good luck, it was a pain overall (Mostly hunting down the damn tools and it was freezing out when I put it back in, and my stuff was stolen so that sucked) but I did save a lot of money, and learned a lot. Goodluck.

 

garfinkle rebuilt his trans complete so can you

 

I did this a while back and I must say it's not "very" easy, but not impossible. You "must" have access to "lots" of quality tools, and not just your average sunday mechanic tools. You're going to need all kids of extractors. I had to custom make most of the arms for my extractors, so I could get the "odd" lengths that I needed. After the the bearings are removed then you can pull out the primary and secondary shafts, and it's a piece of cake after that. Also, I would "not" try to remove and reinstall the tranny without at least a hydraulic floor jack. It is "very" heavy and requires some time to line up the spline on the primary without damaging the wedge collar or pilot bearing. If you do not have "plenty" of mechanical experience, and access to "many" tools, I highly recommend against doing it yourself. My tranny rebuild took quite a while, but I was in no rush, and the parts had to be special ordered. Btw, IMO, the hardest part of the whole job was "not" removing the tranny, but disassembling it. It took me 30 min to drop the tranny.

 

Has anyone had a quote done for the tranny in the car and with it out? I mean how much would I save if I took the tranny out myself?

I think taking the tranny out and putting it back in would be pretty easy.