Thread: Loose input shaft on 5 speed

Hey guys,
I'm after a bit of info please. I've got a spare 5 speed for my rangie, it's the early one with the shifter towards the front, as mine has some serious 4th gear syncro issues (and transfer, but that's another issue) I was going to swap them over. Oil that came out of it was super clean and shifts in all gears, but I can wobble the input shaft around abit, not in and out but up and down and side to side. How much movement is acceptable ?, obviously it's not going to move around once the spigot has been aligned up, but there is obviously something loose....... Input shaft bearing possibly ? How big a job are we talking ?

Thanks !

Originally Posted by justinc

With an LT77 box, slight deflection of the input shaft is permissable. It is quite a long shaft in the V8 box, a small amount of bearing play at the gearbox end can transpose to a LOT at the spigot end. A tight shaft will mean too much preload on the front bearing, and the pilot bearing in the rear of the input shaft will be loaded incorrectly too.

The results of a loose, lacking in preload input bearing will be very poor synchro action, to the point of grating gears etc, and also a lot of rattle in neutral, idling.

I would'nt be too concerned if the gearbox came out of a running vehicle, just rotate the shaft quickly in neutral, see if you can feel roughness etc denoting a worn front bearing. Shift it through the gears and If all you feel is gear teeth etc rotating, and the play doesent allow the shaft to actually touch the support 'tube' surrounding the input shaft, then I'd be happy.

Don't forget to replace the spigot bush!!!



JC

Thanks mate you're very helpful,
it rotates quite smoothly in all gears, I'd say I am worried about nothing.

Cheers.