Whats up guys im new to this fourm and this is my first post

Ok now heres my problem which is also my friends problem. My friend with a 1988 gta trans am crash it. He got t-boned pretty bad but his engine and his auto tranny are still good (17k on the engine and around 23k on the tranny). Now we found this body(1986 trans am body) with less than 115k miles on the body. We both check it out and its in good shape. Now problems with the body. Its not comming with an engine( we dont care cause we got the other one) no rims ( but we have the other ones ) but heres the major problem the rear diff is locked up (we asked the guy and he told us that the other guy he got it from put a " beast" of an engine in and left the rear diff stock and it just tore it up) the beast of an egine is a 355. Now the body (1986 trans am body) comes with a 5 speed tranny but we have no way of checking to see if the tranny works. We where thinking about disconnecting the drive shaft and then running the car to see if the tranny shifts threw all its gears. Im not to sure by us disconnecting the drive shaft this will really show us if the tranny works. This is the real problem if the tranny works. We really dont know what to do. Or if there are any other ways to check if the tranny is good.




p.s

we have the rear diff from his other car and that is still good

 

If your friend's engine is even mildly-hot, you won't wanna use the 5 speed. That is the notoriously weak T5, they have been known to be blown apart by 6 cylinder cars, and don't stand a chance behind a decent V8. Trust me, i know

 

thanks guys

 

well im the friend with the engine, and i didnt like your response Air_Adam...lol. what else can i do? i want a manual transmission...i dont have like $1000 - $2000 to spend on a new one either. this seems like the best choice right now...ithink ill rebuild the t-5 for now. what do you guys think? will a rebuilt t5 last me a while if i take it easy?

 

The T-5 in my bros old highway patrol Mustang held up fine even after 200,000 plus miles the clutch was fried and the engine smoked some but the tranny was still good.

 

well i hope this tranny will last me at least a year...would a rebuild strengthen it any?

 

Rebuilding it with stock components would not strengthen it. Now if you when't in and put better stuff in it, then yes it would. I would tell ya what to put in it but I'm an automatic man my self so I couldn't help.

 

To find out if the tranny is good... See if it goes into each gear and see if both the input shaft and out put shaft spin easily. If they do is is more than likely a good tranny.

 

The T5 that was used in the 302 Mustangs were different than the F-body versions. They were substantially stronger, I dont recall why though.