T-5 problems

since you say it doesnt happen in 4th and 5th AND it is hard to shift into second i am willing to bet that you have a bent shift fork (many mustang owners love to grab 2nd very hard) and your bearings are starting to whine on the counter shaft which is used in every gear except 4th. 4th gear ratio is 1:1 which means the trans input and output shafts are spinning at the same speed. there is no gear reduction or gear multiplying in 4th which is what leads me to believe theres a counter shaft bearing problem.

Add me to the bent shift fork replies, as I have the same exact problem right now with my T-5. Everything else is fine, all gears go in, even tried different shifters, clutch adjustment, fluid change, burnt offerings.

1-2 shift fork/rail is kablooey. I got a great price for a rebuild from a place in SE PA called Hanlon. $250 parts kit, $about $50 for the fork, plus p$275 labor to rebuild. Thinking about sending mine there.

guys, t5 shift forks are made of cast aluminum, they don't bend, they break. I've pulled apart and rebuild a few dozen t5's, and having a purely broken shift fork is pretty rare. 99% of the time, it's the plastic tabs on the shift fork that have simply broken off....those tabs come in a rebuild kit, or can be ordered by themselves if you want to spot-fix it yourself. Astroperformance.com has them.

The lid can be pulled and the fork replaced/plastic tabs fixed quite simply by yourself and the entire internals don't have to be spilt out.

as well, the $250 rebuild kit is excessive imo. Many of the parts in that kit are inspect-re use type parts that don't need to be replaced. I order the $150 kit that has new syncros (just the fiber lined 1,2 and carbon fiber 3,4,5) new bearings and new small parts.

The whine you're experiencing is not coming from the cluster shaft, it's coming from the insert bearings on the end of the mainshaft that fit into the end of the input shaft.

Since 4th gear is actually on the input shaft, these bearings allow the input/4th to spin independently of the main shaft that contains the rest of the gears.

when you're in the other gears, the input/4th is spinning at a different rate that the mainshaft is spinning. When you shift into 4th gear, it locks the input/4th gear into the mainshaft and the two spin 1 to 1 together. When this happens the bearings between the two stop spinning since the two units are locked into each other, and your whine goes away.

What this all means is that you're chewing your mainshaft tip up, and by the time you pull it out, you'll need a new mainshaft, which is fairly expensive. Places like hanlonmotorsports can re-tip it for around $75 which is a good way to go. It may not be too late to save it, but if it's whining, then those bearings are already chewing up that mainshaft tip.

this is the end of the mainshaft. here you see the 3/4 slider which engages 3rd or 4th gear. The tips is what i'm referring to, and the input shaft slides on top of this tip, and the bearings go inside the end of the input shaft.



this is the end of the input shaft with the bearings in the end. You wouldn't believe some of the chewed up mainshafts I've seen coming in