Why is there a big weight on the rear of my T5 tranny? Does anyone else have one? Is it necessary? Why is it there?

 

helps on vibration. This idea was mainly used on the astro vans.

 

I have one of those things. I assumed it provided some sort of protection from foreign flying objects, but the vibration story sounds better.

 

Hmmmm, my '86 Firebird was originally a 2.8 V6 in front of the 5-speed and I don't have the weight. Makes me wonder which cars got them...

 

It helps in vibration as the tranny is rubber mounted and will want to kind of bounce as torque is applies. That weight helps keep it in place. i had two of them at one and ended up giving one to a friend to use on his ford truck, it help do the same thing. Kept the shaft of the tranny from bouncing with torque.

 

So would the purpose of the counterweight be negated by an ES poly trans mount? Love to ditch that extra weight. Almost make up for the turbo

 

Hmmm.....good question techsmurf. I figured I would probably leave it there even though it may not be completely necessary. At least that extra weight is close to the center of the car.

 

Well you could just solid mount the tranny. but then the torque arm is useless.

For the torque arm to work the whole system must be able to move around.

Later on my friend did end up mounting his two trannys down solid. The weight helped but once he had two trannies end to end they had to be mounted solid.
[Yea he had two 4 speeds end to end, talk about gear ratio's]