And so far I'm optimistic.

It's been a big series of little setbacks, but with the tools I've made and what I've learned, it would be a whole lot faster/better/cleaner the second time around. Plus, I'd often take several days at a time without touching it.

You can see here the socket I had made (only ended up being $25 less than the $100 SST) to handle the big locknut, and the tranny earlier tonight.

Tomorrow I'll be setting up the tranny jack and hopefully getting it in the car again.

Now if the weather would just cooperate so I can take it for a test drive once I'm done, I'd be golden. The writeup will not begin until I've tested the car to be sure it's worked. I have over 100 pictures.

 

is that a 2 1/8" socket?

 

i looked at that and said DAMN! Now that is a mainshaft!! Then i saw the welds. Pretty good thinking. I guess the cost was in the welding? or thickwalled tubiing? Good job on taking this job on. You will feel sooo good when it works like it is supposed to. Good luck!

 

good for you my transmission was the major holdup when i was replacing my engine.

 

yeah id like to know how the rebuild went... and how difficult the process is. i currently have an FD tranny lying on my garage floor which feels a little "questionable" ... and ive never seen it in action... but a couple gears wont engage without a good amount of force so im worried. anyway, i wanted to rebuild/get it rebuilt so it wouldnt immidiatly take a poop when it gets bolted up to the ol 3rotor.

 

The key word is 'when'. I'm optimistic it will work as soon as it's all back together I put the shifter in last night and gently raked the gears - it was real smooth, and should get better when there is gear oil inside.

The shape of the tool is nothing original - it's exactly what the Mazda tool looks like. It's a 41mm deep impact socket ($25) with a piece of steel pipe ($10) and welded together ($40 labor). I had it done by a shop since I can't weld and don't have pipe sections laying around. I ended up using that tool for all of 3 minutes

 

I look forward to your write up because I plan to rebuild one sometime soon as a spare. What you've shown so far looks great!

 

I can't even begin to tell you how many tools i have that i HAD to buy to make the job possible. Then i use it ONE time and never have that job come in again. Rendering my usually 100+ dollar tool a pretty paper weight. But it saves you from wanting to killl yourself. You cn rent out the tools to forum members if theyt wanted to take on a rebuild job

And if you took your time and followed the manual, you should be all set. Make sure you bench shift the tranny as you were saying you did. There is NOTHING worse then spending 1 hour getting the tranny back in place and then not be able to move thru the gears. How do i know this? Let's just say that in the last 7 years i have never installed a gearbox without testing it first. But that one time i did, Bit my *** sooo hard i still have the scar