Transmission rebuild

[macv2.0]

Hey everyone, I've been a lurker on the board for awhile but i thought i would stop in and tell everyone about my little project micra, I got it in exchange for labor.

I got it less than a year ago and its been sitting in my driveway since, runs good, well looked after but the transmission would stick in 2nd gear and didn't want to come out of gear, so today i finally decided to take out the tranny.

about 4 hours later after working outside in the rain i had the tranny out and disassembled and found one of the syncros has broken into 3 pieces, that was pretty easy. I work next to a Nissan dealer so i am going to stop by there after lunch and hopefully they still sell parts for the car.

a bit of background, i'm from Canada and the car was only sold here and not in the US, so parts are a little harder to source than usual. But i found everything i will need locally anyway (sans the transmission bits), and luckilly the parts i will be replacing are stink cheap. Provided I *can* fix the tranny i'm going to do front and rear brakes, timing belt, clutch disc (if it needs it), front and rear main seals, and gasket-goop the pan and valve cover.

after thats all taken care of and depending on how long i keep the car i might do front shocks and tint the windows. The car is actually my "backup car" with my main car being a 2000 Audi S4 (quite a change) But i'm looking forward to saving a ton of money on gas, the audi uses about 14L/100KM, i'm hoping for anything under 10L/100KM with the micra.

I'll try and post pictures of the audi, the micra tomorrow and the transmission internals if i get the chance, look forward to the replys and any tuning tips you guys might have.

 

[Noddie]

welcome mate! good luck with the re-build
look forward to the pics!

 

[macv2.0]

well, i went to the dealership today, the part i need is the 3rd 4th gear syncromesh or as its called in their catalog "hub-synchronizer" and they want $98 for the part fwn

the parts guy recommended replacing a bunch of other stuff too for good measure, but since i got this car in lieu of labor I'll keep it cheap and just replace the syncro.

anyway, here are some pics, as you can see in the first one there is alot of heat discoloration on the 3-4 shift collar, or as they call it "sleeve coupling"

a closer view with one of the broken teeth

and heres a picture of my Audi S4 alongside my friends XJR and X5

 

[egres_svk]

If you want to save gas, you could be easily looking at 6/100 My 1.0 does 5.4 on highway at 100km/h, and 6.2-6.5 in the city.. mostly fine driving, but sometimes thrashing if you could get a hold of vacuum gauge, connect it and stick it somewhere where you'll see it.. it does a great job when you want to drive economically

 

[frank]

hi macv (Y), those gears look pretty healthy eh.
btw, that is,nt the (separate) thrust spring you have in your fingers is it ?
http://www.micra.org.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=13151&stc=1&d=1247051950

 

[SammoHung]

ring of fire

same happened to me on a 5 speed box.

this is the weak spot on the MA boxes...(the thing bridges in each of the gear rings)

Mine was stuck in 3rd...and it was 3rd that was cracked&smashed

all looked fine on the spindle but on removal several peices came off just like the one you were holding...


BTW these gears are not the synchros...that are the main numberes drive gears

the synchro is the really thin wheels that can move from side to side by 5 to 10 degrees or so on the spindle


hope you get it sorted mate

 

[macv2.0]

I just heard from the dealer today, back orderd part and they won't have an ETA untill tuesday. I was hoping to have it running again by the weekend.
One shop i called said to bring in the part and they will see what they have, I'm not holding my breath, but its worth a shot.

 

[imp124]

nissan in the UK took about 3-4 weeks to recive a part i ordered as it had to come from a NOS warehouse in japan. Dont know if this will be the same?

cheers

Steve

 

[macv2.0]

Thats what i am afraid of, but hopefully there is some kind of warehouse in the USA that has it.

the part itself was pretty cheap, I got a discount through my work, 20% off, so it came to $88 CDN with the tax (like VAT), list was $98 + tax.


in the meantime I will probably do the brakes, etc and a bit of bodywork on the side so when i do sell it i can make top dollar, lol.

 

[imp124]

sounds good, what colour is it atm

 

[macv2.0]

its red, with a mickey mouse paint job on the front fender (wing) that has faded to a orange kind of color.

 

[macv2.0]

I was just thinking perhaps you were asking the color of the transaxle fluid and not the paint job on the car itself, lol.

It looked normal used, not like the terminator 2 like i have seen on other transmissions. just dark with a very minimal amount of metal shavings in it. looks like the magnet inside the transmission must have picked up most of the shavings. I think the reason it failed was a poorly adjusted clutch and not a lack of fluid changes.

 

[macv2.0]

i finally got an ETA from the stealership, august 17th. part has to come all the way fro japan.

At least now i know i can go ahead and fix everyhing else and it won't be in vein. (front and rear main seals, cam seal, re-seal valve cover, brakes, etc etc.) I will post up some pics of the hub replacement when i get the part, so stay tuned

 

[Arnold]

My gearbox suffered the same fate in needing a new 'hub'. I just went to a gearbox recondition place and they got the box repaired and back to me in less than 48 hours. £150 + Vat it cost.

 

[macv2.0]

hey guys, i got the car running now and I am currently driving it, i was in a bit of a rush to get it back together, so i didn't take any pictures of the re-assembly.

its a little stiff on the 3-2 shift, but other than that its working fine.

I gave the car a low-cost tune up using some used but still good NGK G-power platinum plugs, when i get my timing light back i'll probably bump the ignition timing up a bit too. still gotta run some carb-cleaner through the system and install the new timing belt.

I also put on a bigger oil filter for a ford pickup truck (lorry?) the ford part number is FL1A, its about 3 times the size of a standard micra filter and holds quite a bit more oil, but i wouldn't recommend it, the oil light stays on for about 3 seconds when i start it up in the morning because all the oil seems to drain out of the filter and it takes awhile to fill it up again and start lubricating the engine. So i am going to swap it out for a smaller toyota 2zz-GE oil filter (the oil filter of a last generation Celica GT-S 180-hp engine) I generally prefer the toyota filters whenever possible because when you open them up you will find they cram in twice the amount of filter media compared to most oil filters for a given space.