Should I be able to turn a transmission in neutral by hand?
 

I just re- assembled a smoothcase. The gearset turned fine by hand outside of the case. forks engaged like a champ. checked with tailhousing on, no bellhousing. shifting once again worked as expected. ensured transmission was in neutral assembled everything but damn its tight. There is no lube yet, but a quick hand test should not need lub, or be that tight.

yes, u should be able to turn the shafts by hand.

Should be the same in or out of case easy to turn

Not always, if the bearings aren't shot. Stick a clutch disk on it for more leverage and see.

bearings looked good visually. I'm going to have to try this again. Good news is all parts are very clean.

If the bearings AREN'T shot. New bearings will have enough preload that turning by grabbing the input shaft will be difficult at best. When everything is worn out, they turn much more easily.

Need the leverage of a clutch disk on the input shaft to effectively turn a "new" trans.

Update. I assembled the transmission originally with the main input bearing on the input shaft and used the transmission housing bolts to compress the bell housing to the plate. You see it turns out that this keeps the gears compressed so neutral did not work due to friction between the two shafts. I will be buying a bearing puller and install the bearings in the bell housing first and then assemble the unit. Bearings still look good but have no preload. I think Im going to replace as long as Im already this far into it.

I am also looking for new shift forks. I'm using the bolt in style. Atkins says they have a 3-4 listed but it says for Canadian models only. This specificity seems weird to me. Mazda parts service catalog only goes back to '84. I am thinking that the forks from a B2000 or B2200 could work as I understand them to be the bolt in variety, but I wouldn't know as I don't see them listed on any dealers list. Any Ideas where to find a new set? Mine are .5mm out of spec.