rhodes2010 said:

tried searching for all topics on replacing manual awd 5 speed trans in 1996 gsx looking for known rebuilders, kits, whole rebuilt trans. seems like not much talked about. which suprises me.
Anyway, our stock 1996 GSX Eclipse awd 5 speed is toast. Ideally I would like to purchSe an already rebuilt trans. I repaired this one once ten years ago, would like to find a rebuild kit if cannot find complete bolt in trans. not having any online searching. plenty of automatics, plenty of FWD. not much AWD.
does anyone know if rebuild kit for fwd works in awd?

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Jack's Trans Rebuild Kits

You have to search by the model #: "w5m33 rebuild kit" and you'll get alot more results. Several places carry rebuild kits, Jack's has a good selection as mentioned above. @bastarddsm or @twicks69 might also be able to hook you up with parts or a professional rebuild.

i have car lifted. looking for my transmission number. wish i had done this when i had it out of car, oh.. three times or so already.doh!
where is the number that is supposed to be on the front. sorry for the dumb question.
and thanks for the referrals, starting monday when these places open, i am on it.

The number is at the top of the bell-housing between the upper-most two bell-housing bolts.

Usually on one of the two flat pads (top one is where it's usually stamped) in the red circle, sometimes found on the end (5th/reverse) cover in blue circle. Pic courtesy of lazy Google search.

another question: years ago I read something about the 1995 - 1996 AWD having a different ratio gear in either: transfer case, or differential/transfer case setup.
Meaning that you could not swap certain driveline parts directly from a 1997 to 1999 AWD into a 1995 - 1996 (unless you did it all so the gear ratios match).
Can anyone confirm this idea and warn me which parts I can swap safely. I really want to purchase a rebuilt ready-to-go trans, but concerned this little detail might get missed.
If this gear ratio thing is true, then I should probably work at getting this exact one rebuilt to avoid and headaches and hassles. Thanks everyone.

The transfer case has a different ratio on those years (95-96) IIRC

The 97-99 trans and tcase are different than 95-96. If you're using a 95/96 trans you need a 91-96 tcase, 97-99 trans needs a 97-99 tcase. The rear diffs are the same. If you're trying to build one good trans out of a 95/96 and a 97-99 you'll need more info for interchange, but the easiest way to do it would be to have a matching tcase to the trans.

Thanks everyone. Trans needs to match Transfer Case - got it. Attached is the picture of my trans number. Kinda unreadable . Bummed.
I took transfer case off last night to check spline count because a rebuilder in Oregon, (transmissionsexpress.com) asked for spline count.
Starting to think safest way out is to have this one rebuilt. It seems that sellers of reman trans will not be able to tell original source year and assure me it is 95-96.