Transmission input shaft play
 

So I bought a "Blueprinted" transmission from Pettit, of which heard good things. I had it shipped to a friend's place which is where I will be installing it. However when I showed up today I was a little distressed to find that the input shaft has some play in it.

I would just call Cam and ask him about it, but I can't since it's the weekend, and I was hoping to put it in this weekend...

How much play is normal on the input shaft? The rebuild seems to have somewhere around 1mm of absolute play at the end of the shaft. Certainly easily feel-able with a bare hand.

Good luck dealing with Pettit

A couple videos...

Disclaimer that I'm not a professional transmission rebuilder, but from your videos it looks to me like you're moving that shaft more in a side-to-side direction than an in & out direction. The FSM has a specification for the in & out axial direction, called "thrust play", as highlighted in the attached FSM snippet. I couldn't find a similar spec in the FSM for the side-to-side play I'm seeing in your video, so I can't comment on whether or not that side to side play is normal or not. But you should re-check the thrust play per the FSM
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx7...42b668b684.png

you want to make sure that it spins freely and shifts through all the gears.

the input shaft play is a non issue, the pilot bearing locates the input shaft

^Agree. Probably have to some internal play or lash anyway.

I'd want the bellhousing and shim installed to get an idea of that play. Probably a lot of that is the clearance of the needle bearing inside the box between the main and input shaft.

I just hope it isn't due to some UPS guy manhandling the shaft.

I mean... you know what I mean. :suspect:

How was it packaged when it arrived? If there was destruction in transit, hopefully you got insurance on it.

Yup. Every trans I've had including racecars has some input shaft play. The tip, as mentioned above, is located by the pilot bearing, and a little play in the trans brg allows that to happen w/o the 2 brgs fighting each other.

Agree. The input shaft connects to the main shaft with roller bearing. That's most likely the cause of this radial play, which BTW looks normal to me as shown in your video.