legacycentral bbs

OK. '92 Legacy 2.2 turbo sedan awd 5mt. Was ice racing and 1st gear went away. Tranny worked fine other than that.

Dropped tranny. Dissemble (number 5). Synchro's look GREAT and float around fine, no obvious problems there.



Shifts into 2nd fine, will not go into 1st. OK. Disassemble pinion shaft.
Really, everything looked fine down to the selector. The teeth that look like the synchros on that gear have obvious wear on them, ground down approx 25% from what I imagine was there new condition.



The funny thing is, the synchros look brand new. Judging from the paint marks on the nuts, I'd guess this tranny has never been apart. How do those teeth wear out and the synchros look new? I must be missing something.
So, I think the FSM calls that item a hub assembly. It says not to disasemble it, and if it's worn to replace the whole thing. When I was pulling stuff from the pinion, I gave it a tug to see which part I needed to press next, the thing came apart in my hand. I checked @ suby, it looks like you have to buy a stack of bits @ $140 instead of just the selector I want.
When I pulled that thing apart, I think the sliders and snaprings were monkeyed up. I'm pretty sure thats what was preventing 1st from engaging. I'm gonna get some new parts and see if that works.

Anyone have any input?

I'm gonna dig through some parts catalogs and see if that bit is interchangeable with anything, I found a '99 2.5rs tranny local for $100, if it has the stuff I need I might check into that.

I'll bet money that the grooves on the inside of the brass rings are quite dull. It takes someone with a fair amount experience rebuilding trannys to know what "dull" is though. I got schooled by a tranny tech on the old set of blocking rings I have laying around and how worn they actually are.

ahh, good point. really didn't even look there. To tell you the truth I thought the synchros were smooth inside. I'll check that tommorow.

I don't think worn blocking rings would prevent you from going into first if you are completely stopped, but I'm no tranny expert.


The worn blocking rings are usually what make the gears grind when trying to shift. These grooves in the inside. You can't see the taper on the inside, but it is there.

before I lost first it was dificult to engage, needed to be at a complete stop or rev-match the engine to avoid a grind.

HA! I figured it out. These synchros work a little different that the truck trannies I'm used to. I'm sure at least my 1st gear one is worn, I bought 1 and 2 since it was apart. The wear in the pic above (these teeth are pretty worn out) are that way because the synchro is worn and loose, and doesn't affect the speed of gears anymore. That leads to grinding. Well, while ice racing, coming off a corner it became apparant that I was gonna eat a snowberm. It was 1-2 laps from the finish, I started in last and was doing a pretty good job of chasing down 1st. I decided I'd try to power through the berm, and tried grabbing 1st at about 20mph, just before hitting the berm. Well, it happened to fast and I wasn't able to match speed well engouh and ground 1st pretty bad. Wound up having to reverse out of the berm, and fionished in second place. Never had 1st after that. I guy who knows more about these things than me showed me today that the hub won't slide past the ground down teeth in the pic above, thats what was keeping me out of 1st.

Well, ordered parts, hope to be back on the road next week.

As an aside, the synchros look a bit different. Instead of having teeth all the way around, there are some spaces between groups of teeth.

Yeah, that pic is of original 5mt blocking rings original to a '93 tranny. They have since been updated.

hey how much did the parts cost you? my 2nd and 3rd grind when i shift into them and im trying to get an idea on what i should do.

I wound up spending a couple hundred bucks for the synchros and hub. The synchros were cheap, it was the ruined hub that cost alot.

The updated synchro design is not nearly as robust, but offers much smoother shifting. Did you buy OEM supersedes or the originals? I had a tough time finding NOS originals to replace mine.

I'm sure they were the new ones, whatever the dealer had in stock.

My first and second shifts aren't nearly as nice as I'd like them to be.