So, back in December, I replaced the oil in my 5 spd manual transmission when the shifting started getting a little "sticky" overnight. When I drained the oil, there were suspended metal particulates in the oil and 3 or 4 small sand grain sized metal chunks were in the bottom of the drain pan. There had also been some VERY mild howling sound that I think was coming from the transmission. So, this weekend I pulled the transmission, installed new clutch, pressure plate, throw out bearing and pilot bearing and installed a replacement used transmission. Took a drive about 90 miles and all seems to be working fine. In all, I think I put 10-12 hours into the swap. I think I spent at least 2 hours getting the car set up on ramps and jack stands. I tried not to hurry. Took my time and thought about what I was doing through the entire process. I wrote a bell housing pattern labeling bolts A thru G. I put each bolt in a zip log baggie labeled with that bolt position. I had to pull the air intake snorkel between the air filter and the throttle body to clear the top of the transmission bell housing. I had to swap the clutch slave cylinder. I had to pull the flywheel to replace the pilot bearing since while using my puller the old bearing fragmented and the sheaf was not pullable at that point. I had to adjust the bracket on the transmission to get her to shift into reverse. It was slightly bent such that the stick back and forth motion was mechanically restricted by the slot in the bracket on the transmission. It was quite an exercise and not something I would want to do a second time.125kmiles on the original transmission, 88kmiles on the clutch. Clutch still appeared to have at least 75% of material left (impressive since I taught my son how to drive a manual transmission with this car).
