gear grinding/clutch problems

[orion4096]

Low pedal disengagement/engagement which means you are probably not fully disengaging the clutch with the pedal on the floor.  You could get blockouts or grinding when changing gears especially at higher revs where the synchros have to work harder.  I was getting blockouts at higher revs on the track in my miata.  Disappeared after I put a spacer in.  The spacer on the rx7 didn't really help with grinding since my t56 synchros were messed up.  It did get rid of a ton of freeplay in the pedal which feels better when driving and helps to keep your synchros in good shape since the clutch is fully disengaged.

[Houmack]

Thanks for your prompt help. I fixed my immediate issue by adjusting the pedal out althoughway. This seems to have fixed the issue of the car not going into gear at all. Now it feels much better and I can easily go into any gear. With that said, I think I could still benifit from a shim/spacer. I'll leave that to over the winter.

Cheers! 

[orion4096]

So I got my non-shifting c5z t56 today and decided to pull the rear housing to see what it looked like.  From what little I can see it looks reasonably clean without any big chunks of metal from keys, gear teeth, or other obviously bad stuff.  Check out the first pic and see if you can figure out what's wrong. 

[digitalsolo]

Custom shift rail, sweet!

[orion4096]

I was making a list of c5 -> gto/fbody conversion parts and the front offset lever (where the other end of the shift rail went) looks almost the same except the c5 has some extra metal sticking up for the reverse lockout.  The cheap-ass part of me says cut that bit off and re-use it.  The lazy part of me thinks it would suck to have to pull it all back out if it eventually breaks due to the cutting.  It costs $29 for a new fbody one.  Opinions?

[digitalsolo]

29.00 = buy it.

[orion4096]

If the 5th/6th driven gear pull off by hand what needs to be replaced?  Didn't see anything in the t56 manual about that.  I'm hoping it's the mainshaft since the gto one is going in anyway.

EDIT: Nevermind.  Forgot I already had the new mainshaft.  I can't push it on by hand on the new one and there is .0025" more material so it looks good even if the gear is a little worn.  .005" difference was enough to make it not require a puller.

[orion4096]

Ended up picking up another c5z t56 this weekend for $150 that was run dry.  Took a big chance with that one.  Both of them are now completely apart and it looks like I can make at least one quality gto t56 (with fbody offset lever) from all this stuff.  The bearing and race at the end of mainshaft going into the input shaft were destroyed on the dry t56, but all the other bearings were still in one piece, just a little crunchy, which saved the other parts.

[orion4096]

Does anyone know if thrust washers #135 and #139 are needed for the ls1-fbody/gto extension housing reverse idler: http://www.tickperformance.com/tremec-135-reverse-idler-gear-thrust-washer/.  Neither of the two reverse idlers in my corvette extension housings had them and tickperformance.com says they are for lt1s and cobras so I'm thinking it's ok without them.  On the other hand, the housing hasn't changed from the lt1 to ls1-fbody/gto

[orion4096]

Took the old fbody (99) t56 out and put the converted c5z/gto hybrid in.  Damn.  It shifts so much better.  Triple and double cone synchros FTW.  Only problem is the 4.10 gears suck even more now.  Cruising around at 30mph in 5th gear is annoying.  Now I need to build another one for the track car.

Old and busted:


New hotness (+ messy garage):