Mcampbell7219

Hey Everyone,

New to the forum here, and looking for some help.

General Specs:
Year: 1983
Engine: 5.0L
Transmission: T5
Mileage: 70K

So, my original T5 locked up at highway speeds driving down the thruway in NY. Im not super adept when it comes to the internals of a manual tranny so ill try to paraphrase the feedback I got from the local transmission shop. Wrecked some of the gears and bearrings on the main and counter shaft. Snapped the teeth off 2nd gear and seized the syncros to 3rd. The shop owner advised itd be too expensive to fix as is. The only salvageable part is the case. Cause of failure is lack of enough tranny fluid. Since this 83 has a mechanical clutch and mechanical speedo can I match a later year (83-89) T5 to my 83 bell housing?
I can get more detail if needed.

Thank you in advance!
-Mike

RedLeader289

iTrader: (2)

Yea, it’ll bolt right up. Your manual speedo sensor will bolt on too.

Mcampbell7219

Awesome. Thank you RedLeader.

-Mike

sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

Yup, all years of V8 T-5s in these cars, bolt up to all other years of V8s, in these cars.

Note carefully the phrases:

"in these cars"
"V8"

A MooseTang one will NOT bolt up. A S-10 one will not bolt up. A 6-cyl one will not bolt up. A 4th gen one will not bolt up.

Has to be, a V8 3rd gen one.

Bear in mind, there are 4 basic variants.

1st, there's the 1st / 2nd design difference. 1st design is what you have. In about 87 or 88, the 2nd design was introduced in these cars. (other years in other cars) If possible, you want the 2nd design. It is often referred to by a typical mid-late 80s BUZZWORD derived from the PIT team / 4 ups charts / quality circles / other OBSOLETE GARBAGE TRENDY BUZZWORD culture of that day, word. I cannot type it without vomiting on my keyboard. And since I have no particular desire to clean up vomit, or buy another kb, I will not type it.

A pic you can use to sort them out: 1st design on top, 2nd on the bottom. Note the stain below and to the left of the front countergear bearing (round object about 2" dia partially covered by the clutch gear bearing retainer) on the 1st design: your transmission had EXACTLY the same problem as the one in my photo, which is, the bearing leaked all the fluid out, which is part of the cascade of positive-feedback events that killed your transmission, just as it killed the one in my photo. That's how they die.



2nd, there's a gear ratio difference. LG4 and L03 cars (base carb and TBI) got crappy ones. L69 (HO) and at least some LB9 (305 TPI) cars got better ones, specifically the ones with RPO G92, known as "Performance Gearing". Not sure about "all" TPI 305s; the "base" ones may have got the grocery-cart ratios, I don't know for sure, I stay away from them, because ... base model. Sorry, I'm just not a base-model kind of guy, don't know diddly about them, in any kind of detail.

Clearly, among the 4 possible variants, you should look for the 2nd design (88 up more or less) and G92 ones.

All will "fit". The question of "desirability" is another matter. Butt, you could settle for a crappy one to get your car working again, while scouring the entire planet for what you REALLY want, which is, a 2nd design G92 one. It only takes about an hour and a half, drive-in to drive-out, to swap it, so don't be intimidated by the prospect of changing it more than once. Butt the good ones are tough to find. Gotta be ready and waiting; when one shows up, it's not "I think that's too much, I heard my sister's boyfriend's uncle's former roommate's brother's friend's father's brother-in-law's boss' wife's co-worker got one for only [[lowball]] in 1997, will you take [arbitrarily stupidly insulting lowball offer]"; you need to be standing in front of the wrecked carcass as they pull the unfortunate PO out into the hearse going to the morgue, peeling Benjamins off of a nice impressively thick tall stack, until the buzzard releases it to you. Sorry to be ghoulish butt that's the way these things work. They come out of WRECKED cars that are DESTROYED BEYOND REPAIR, and you can't just "order" one of those; and there's like A MILLION other people lined up to buy it, when it shows up. You gotta jump on it like you MEAN it.

midias

Also just a FYI you might have to change the internal speedo gear to match your cars rear end.

Where are you in upstate NY?

Mcampbell7219

Sofakindom, ghoulish or not thanks so much for the great info. Another silly question, how do you identify the g92 version of the T5?

Midias, im in the utica/rome area.

-Mike

RedLeader289

iTrader: (2)

Pull the ID# off the tag on the main case (should be something like 13-52-072) and compare it to this list, that'll tell you what gear ratios you have.

http://www.britishv8.org/Articles/Bo...T5-ID-Tags.htm