I had my T5-WC rebuilt 14 months ago (about 8000 miles).

I went to work this morning, all was good with my car. All 5 forward gears and reverse were used. All was well.

I leave work to come home, 1 works fine. 2 works fine. 3 works fine. no reason to worry or think anything is different. i get on the freeway. 4 works fine. i shift into 5th ("feels" like it goes in, no reason to worry, not even thinking about it) and then pull out the clutch and ease on the the throttle. The engine revs as though it were in neutral. I thought at first that I just missed the gear (didnt push it far enough into the gate), so I reshifted (double clutching). Still nothing.

I drove home on the freeway in fourth. When I got home, I played around with the shifter and 5th still feels like its there (it feels as though it locks into the gate), but yet something doesn't quite feel right. Its as though the pushrod is missing (which, if that were true, it shouldn't feel so positive). The transmission has been shifting flawlessly. No grinding. Nothing wrong with the synchros. No missed gears (no spitting out of the shifter). Nothing unusual. Everything else still works and feels fine, except for fifth.

This just happened today and I haven't yet taken the shifter apart to see if something is wrong on that end. I REALLY worry that the tranny will have to be dropped and disassembled.

When it was rebuilt last year, the pro who rebuilt the tranny said it looked great (even the gears). He rebuilt it as usual, replacing all bearings, synchros, etc (all except the gears). Unfortunately, he is in California where I lived at the time. Now I'm in Washington (nothing he can do). Its worked absolutely flawlessly for the last year, with no warning of what happened today.

Does ANYONE have any idea what could have caused this?

 

Exact same thing happened to me today. It was about 2000 miles after a rebuild. What did it turn out to be?

 

snap ring failed. gear slid down shaft. common problem with these trannies, I guess. Easy fix. Be sure to replace the snap ring with a harder one (the stock snap ring is quite soft).

M

 

my 5th gear was whining when the car had only 6000 miles on it. dealer replaced the tranny under warrenty.

 

This just happened to me, I rebuilt the tranny myself, no problems except for 5th gear is missing. Was it the snap ring on the end of the shaft that 5th gear is on in the tailhousing? It would be great to know which one it is because I don't feel like taking the entire tranny out of the car if it is just in the tailhousing. I don't know how much longer my tired old 305 is gonna last running at 4K on the highway