T-5 teardown -- can't get 5th gear off!!!

Hello Stangnet:

I apologize in advance if this is terrible etiquette, but I already posted this question to the 94-95 board and now I'm copying and pasting it here. It was like this:

This is my first post to this board. I am putting a T5 out of a '95 GT into a '65 fastback. But first I am installing a Counter Gear Stabilizer kit from Medatronics (www.5speeds.com). This requires removal of the fifth gear from the back of the case.

I have removed everything down to the synchronizer hub, but it just doesn't want to come off. That is, I've got the synchronizer sleeve off, and those three little things that look like little toy cars are out, and the brass ring from the middle too. But the synchronizer hub seems to be hung up on something. It slides back and forth on its splines, but won't slide off.

What is the trick?

Part two, I did not mark my synchronizer sleeve and hub prior to separating them. Now I read in the T5 service manual and in the Chris Neighbors T5 rebuild page that I should have done this. Well, I didn't, so now what?

TIA, and please have pity on an ignorant newbie.

180

ttt

Thank you, Mike, for the great photo. A pic really is worth a thousand words. Unfortunately the cluster gear shaft on the tranny in your pic is slightly different than the one I'm looking at on my workbench. I believe difference is the same as described by Chris Neighbors at page 16 of his August 2002 T5 rebuild artcle, pomoforacing.com/tech/T5Rebuild2002.pdf . I wish I could copy and paste that page but because it's in pdf, I can't. As Chris explains the difference, "Borg-Warner made an attempt in mid-'92 to relieve the grinding [when shifting into reverse] by piggy-backing a synchronizer and blocker assembly on the fifth gear synchro. The attempt was to slow the cluster gear a bit. . . ."

Anyway, yes I drove the pin out of the shifter fork, and I also removed the external C-clip from the end of the cluster shaft. This allowed me to remove, in order, (1) an internally splined washer which locks into the cluster shaft splines and which retains (2) a black conical washer which fits inside of (3) a brass "blocker" ring, which fits inside of (4) the synchronizer sleeve. Also removed are the three "inserts" (the little metal rectangles that look like tiny cars) and one of the two synchronizer springs. (You can see most of these parts in p. 16 of Chris Neighbor's PDF. You can also see some of these parts, as used in the pre-'92 T-5's, at Figure 3-14 of the Tremec Service Manual ( http://www.ttcautomotive.com/English/products/T-5.asp )) Also, the shifter fork necessarily came off with the synchronizer sleeve. But the inner ring, the synchronizer hub, will not come off.

So that's my question. Why won't that synchronizer hub come off? What's the trick?

ttt

I just got off the phone with the 5speeds.com guy and he says on the later T-5's you've got to pry the 5th gear off or use a puller to get the synchronizer hub off. I would not have tried this without an expert's advice telling me to do it, but now I've got a plan.

Also, he said not to worry about the synchronizer hub and the ring not matching up as assembled from the factory. Next time I will definitely mark them before disassembly, but it doesn't seem to be a biggie.

Anyway, thanks for the help Stangnet!