Busted Transmission

[pboglio]

Lost my transmission today on the way to work this morning going WOT in 2nd gear. When it let go it sounded like a windshield getting busted. Didn't even faze me when it happened to be honest. At first I thought I hit an ice patch and lit up the tires. That was wishful thinking. I reengaged the transmission in all gears and nothing but revs. I was lucky enough to be going down hill and coasted it 100 yards from my work. I got it within 50 yards and nearly dropped dead, a buddy from work ran out and we "barely" pushed it the last 50 yards.

Was real fun pushing my fat GSX down the street. I've been seriously considering weight reduction and this justifies it. I've also considered storing a small powered moped in my trunk for when shit like this happens

Quote of the day from the tow truck driver, "Your car is light should be easy to push," My response, "Go ahead and try and push it". He couldn't even budge it and I had to help him push it out of the parking spot.

This will be the 3rd tranny I've lost and the 2nd built tranny. Never ever launched the car off the line. I've always toyed with the idea of keeping a spare transmission in reserve in case I needed it.

 

[UofACATS]

You sir, need a bigger, slower spooling turbo. That insta-torque is murder on your transmission(s).

 

[->PrOjEcTGS<-]

Well that just sucks.

 

[92AWDHX40]

Sorry to hear that ive lost several trannys over the years several.

 

[slowgsr]

what type of built transmission was it?

 

[twicks69]

Transmission #16 here.

I have shredded 2nd several times. Hopefully the teeth didn't hand grenade anything else, but more than likely, you will have damage to much more expensive parts (input shaft, center diff, front diff, 1/2 hub and slider, etc.).

Good luck!

If anything, post up the carnage pics!

 

[pboglio]

Transmission #16 here.

I have shredded 2nd several times. Hopefully the teeth didn't hand grenade anything else, but more than likely, you will have damage to much more expensive parts (input shaft, center diff, front diff, 1/2 hub and slider, etc.).

Good luck!

If anything, post up the carnage pics!

You wasted 16 tranny'sWTF I talked to my builder and he thinks its a shattered clutch disk, feels totally different than any other of my tranny failures.

 

[twicks69]

Well, do you have any other gears that work? If none work, you likely toasted your clutch.

Trust me, you would know the difference between shearing the teeth off of 2nd gear, and a failed clutch.

Please don't tell me it was a SPEC clutch....

 

[dsm-onster]

You wasted 16 tranny'sWTF

Look at his torque numbers

If it's your transmission, have you been thinking about the possibility elsewhere mentioned, too much bearing preload for your transmission usage?

But, I wasted my Competition [EDIT: nope ACT] Clutch disk with my FWD .

 

[pboglio]

No gears whatsoever including reverse, don't even have to use the clutch to shift while the engine is running. Shifter action feels good actually, I can feel the hub sliders snapping into position and all that. It was an ACT 2100 clutch that survived a toasted input shaft tranny failure, looks like it got its revenge.

Dsm-onster.

Bearing preload may be the cause, I know the tranny's come in "tight" from my builder as it was mentioned before.

 

[jking29]

Please don't tell me it was a SPEC clutch....

Care to elaborate? It's making me a little paranoid hearing this from a tranny guru such as yourself when I have a Spec in my car. I have been having some thoughts about whether the Spec stage 2 is going to be able to stand up to a hx35 this year, or whether I should upgrade ahead of time.

Sorry to the OP for the highjack.

 

[pboglio]

Well, finally got off my butt and started pulling the tranny. Gotta say that NOT dropping the driveshaft this time is saving me a ton of time, same goes for the front suspension. Trying to employ alot of the short cut techniques on this tear down but couldn't quite get away with leaving the driver's side axle in place. It would have gotten in my way and was pretty easy to pull anyways.

Went out and bought an air ratchet for the first time. Why exactly I've gone this long without one I will never know, but my God I can't believe how fast things come apart with one. Here are a few pics of the drain hole and magnetic plug off my tranny. Definitely not a good sign. By the size of the gear tooth I'm guessing 2nd or 3rd gear. Whether I exploded the clutch or not I'll find out tomorrow.

 

[->PrOjEcTGS<-]

That's not a good sign... Eeeekk!!

 

[crimsondragon]

You sir, need a bigger, slower spooling turbo. That insta-torque is murder on your transmission(s).

That would take the fun out of things.

 

[olmytsi]

My transmission has been whining for over a year and i'm scared that's going to happen to it. You may want to just find another trans.

 

[pboglio]

Tear down and rebuild will be completed by mid next week. I'm praying for 20,000 miles between rebuilds at the 400 w.h.p./w.tq. level. This time around I'm planning on the gear shot peening & tranny cooler/pump combination, and if necessary frequent transmission oil change intervals (i.e. every 1000 miles). A slower spooling bigger turbo might actually be a good solution since slowing the spool down on the 16g would obviously give up its primary advantage.

 

[BIGBLAZE79]

On my 4th tranny! I know exactly how that pit in your stomach feels when it grenades I swear if my tranny doesn't last at least a couple years it will be the end of my marriage Or the car will have to be stored and I will have to buy a geo metro

Make sure you leave the plastic blank offs in the spedo sensor and axle holes till the tranny is fully installed. I dropped a washer down the spedo hole on install and my built shep tranny exploded in 900 miles I must admit John really took care of me though he's a real cool guy

 

[turboglenn]

if it will save you any money i can fix the cases (if they were samaged) cheaply for you.. just dis-assemble and ship em to me. Sucks going through trannies. I have a spare 2g FWD turbo trans here that i just built from 2 junkers after fixing the cases (just in case i split this T.R.E.)

might be what you need is to have jon build you a nice smooth shifting tranny...mine was shifting flawlessly at 8200 RPM all night long tonight ( god i love my TRE )

 

[blazinglaser_90]

The one i had build by DogBox racing has been amazing too it withstands the 6000 rpm launches and 8500 rpm shifts and its smooth has glass

I also had that happen before, i heard a sound that almost sounded like a needle being drug across a record player then nothing.....ended up taking the 2nd gear teeth for a joy ride to the bottom of the tranny case

 

[pboglio]

if it will save you any money i can fix the cases (if they were samaged) cheaply for you.. just dis-assemble and ship em to me. Sucks going through trannies. I have a spare 2g FWD turbo trans here that i just built from 2 junkers after fixing the cases (just in case i split this T.R.E.)

might be what you need is to have jon build you a nice smooth shifting tranny...mine was shifting flawlessly at 8200 RPM all night long tonight ( god i love my TRE )

Thanks for the offer Looks like the case is premo, just a gear tooth got bored and took a joy ride thru the tranny where my upgraded magnet drain plug snatched it. Me and Jon spoke yesterday and the consensus is there simply is a limit to what can be done to a DSM tranny to strengthen it. He's recommending the shot peening for a 20-25% increase in gear strength and he thinks the manual tranny cooler is a great idea along with running Redline MT-90. I'd love to try the Redline shockproof oil, but its incompatible with the heat exchanger and tranny oil pump due to the higher viscosity. Or, I could alter my driving style. Na, that wouldn't be any fun

 

[98gst14b]

Jon is a friendly helpful guy, I just rebuilt my tranny with parts from TRE and will definatly do bizz with again in the future. Hes probly gonna tell you the same thing he told me. "Shot peen everything, get a solid center diff, and double syncro second."

 

[olmytsi]

My transmission has been whining for over a year and i'm scared that's going to happen to it. You may want to just find another trans.

So, today, my trans decided to randomly start locking me out of 1st and 2nd, it's like there's a wall and the shifter will not go to the left.

It comes and goes. So time to stop driving her and pull the trans before it gets worse...and it's just getting nice out. At least i got another car to drive.

Im going to take it to dogbox racing in jersey since they are close or maybe Keith at TT.

Sorry for the thread hijack man, just need to vent somewhere .

 

[pboglio]

No problem. I've decided to rebuild my 1st tranny from 7-8 years back that needed nothing more than a basic rebuild kit and 2 replacement shift forks, stupid for not doing it to begin I'll have this one rebuilt by TRE and keep the other in reserve.

 

[pboglio]

Tranny was torn down. No pics yet, I might scrounge up a pic of the input and intermediate shaft. Basically, the 3rd gear on the intermediate shaft was ripped clean of any and all gear teeth. This then took out EVERYTHING else within the transmission. Also, the gear oil was thinned out dramatically, looked to have been sheared to death from the high pressure and heat presumeably.

I don't believe in launching hard on a DSM tranny, in fact, I don't launch period on my DSM. With the lightweight flywheel the car just isn't tailored for launching. Also, for the record, the car has an ACT 2100 clutch with a street disk. The car also is hardly ever shifted at WOT from one gear to the next. Basically, this leaves WOT pulls in gear as a mode for failure.

Had a long long talk with Jon at TRE about all this. Basically the trannies are rated for 250 lb-ft at the wheels if I recall correctly. I am now at about 380-400 lb-ft at the wheels. And those lb-ft are steady state that I could datalog. When my tranny went, it went exactly as the turbo came on boost HARD in 3rd gear and dumped all the torque at once, instantly. The gears shattered while the outside temps were around 15*F and the gearbox had maybe 2 miles of warmup. I do ALOT of tuning in cold weather, due to the increase in power and lack of knock during these conditions.

O.K., what does Jon recommend. He is offering shot peening and it is a proven process everybody has heard of. Secondly, gear oil type, interval change, and oil cooling are critical. So active gear oil cooling was also recommended. I plan on running a tranny oil temp gauge to keep the temps within a nominal range recommended by the gear oil supplier. Finally, HAD I caught my intermediate shaft from exploding early, I could have done a "preventative" tear down, pitched it and swapped in a new intermediate shaft during a refresh rebuild. I usually count the mileage closely after a tranny install on my setup and my comfort zone at this point after 2 built tranny failures is about 7500 miles between tear downs. I am not instantly wasting transmissions. They are going right at about the 10,000 mile mark, like clockwork at current power levels. Something like 2000-3000 WOT pulls more or less. It is obvious they are failing from fatigue.

 

[turboglenn]

Had a long long talk with Jon at TRE about all this. Basically the trannies are rated for 250 lb-ft at the wheels if I recall correctly. I am now at about 380-400 lb-ft at the wheels. And those lb-ft are steady state that I could datalog. When my tranny went, it went exactly as the turbo came on boost HARD in 3rd gear and dumped all the torque at once, instantly. The gears shattered while the outside temps were around 15*F and the gearbox had maybe 2 miles of warmup. I do ALOT of tuning in cold weather, due to the increase in power and lack of knock during these conditions.

I hear ya, that's about the same conditions mine went out under. It was a cold ass night and I had gone to get some thai food about a mile from home, and on the way back i short shifted into third driving slowly and then slowly floored the car. As soon as the boost came on and the torque peaked the tranny just sounded like it popped out of gear, but i was missing third and fourth.

Since getting the TRE i've upped the power level substantially and have not had any issues running 30 - 32 psi on a 57 trim turbo with all supporting mods and stand alone management.

I'm glad you didn't grenade the cases as that would have been a PITA to deal with and more money out the window, as i'm not sure what jon does on the core if iit's got holes in it. I got lucky mine was in good enough shape to get a full core on.