Looking for a reasonably priced T56 setup for my '88 T5 swapped L98 equipped IROC.


I'm looking for a 93-97 4th gen T56, bellhousing, and flywheel for the 1 piece rear seal block, and shifter-- everything that's needed to go from a T5 to a T56.


Everything I'm finding has 150,000+ miles on it, and the seller wants 2K, which is kinda hard to swallow, when you know the first thing you're going to have to do is drop another ton of money into the transmission to rebuild it before installation...so I'm not looking necessarily for something that doesn't need a little attention before putting it in my car.


I'm very willing to drive a few hundred miles or so to pick up in person.

 

Well, after searching for over two years, I'm now the proud owner of a T56.


Tag# is 1386-000-009, which should be the '94-'95 F-body rated at 450 foot pounds of torque. Found it listed on Craigslist less than a half hour away for $800.00


However, it's only the transmission and bellhousing, so I'm still going to be looking for all the other little bits--but the hard part is done...just finding one of these transmissions anymore is something of an achievement all its' own.

 

Hope you have the slave cylinder spacer with it

 

Yes, it came with the spacer, and the clutch fork...but no shifter.

 

Nice.. I had searched awhile.. I came up with mine for 600 complete bell, trans, shifter, fork, speed sensor and reverse lock out at a swapmeet. Laying there at a guys place who did nothing but 4 speeds. Deals are out there but takes time. I think I have a clean oem t56 shifter if you want to run stock. I put a pro 5.0 in mine

 

I’d definitely be interested in the shifter..but I just spent my car fund getting the transmission, and it would be several weeks before I’d be able to buy it.

 

Let me see if I can find it.. Id let it go cheap as I doubt I will ever use it

 

Thanks, I’d appreciate that!

 

did you ever get that t-56 installed? I was looking at your car info and i too have a 88 with the 9 bolt 2.77 rear. wondering how it drove or if you had to do something different?

 

 

 

I am using the Hawks one since I stuck with the factory torque arm. It is a nice enough piece. The holes were a little close and I had to use a drift to get the holes to line up on one side, but it wasn't major. It may have just been a byproduct of the welding or powder coat.I got the Hawks because they were running a sale or coupon and I got it a bit cheaper than the normal price, along with ordering some other parts.

 

I've got a Spohn crossmember laying around here somewhere. The only issue I see is that it'd hang low as hell due to the design. From what I can tell, it'd get in the way more than anything. I'd probably go with Hawk's if I wasn't diametrically opposed to buying anything from them on principle.

 

 

I got a Hawks covered in POR-15 PM if you need.

 

That's certainly tempting...I'll get back to you on that, if I decide to do the Hawks. At this point, unless someone is having a killer sale, the Hawk's sound like the way to go.

 

i have one with a tork arm. I can send you a pic tomorrow if your intrested and im coming up to pigeon forge this weekend. Its a sphon

 

its a sphon

 

 

Just heard back from the transmission shop...the T56 was in good condition...just needed freshening up a bit with new synchronizers, bearings, and seals. I'm surprised, considering what I paid for it. $800.00 is pretty cheap for a usable T56 these days. I'll be getting it back from the shop next week.

 

The shop finished with the transmission...in addition to the other stuff, they installed bronze fork pads on the 1-2 and 3-4 forks. Only one small internal part was found to be missing.

Overall, they said it was pretty nice, but I'd rather have it rebuilt, and install it once. Total cost for the whole deal is $1750, including what I paid for the transmission. My patience in finding a reasonably priced T56 seems to have paid off.

..it "only" took 2.5 years to locate one.