legacycentral bbs

Just bought a '92 FWD wagon with the 5spd.

There's enough side to side slop that I could break the plastic trim if I hadn't removed it before driving. There is no feel whatever to tell me what shift rail I'm about to push.

I've never owned one of these cars in manual before so I have no idea what my potential options for worn bushings and whatnot are. What are the odds I can get this to a point where it can be safely without rebuilding the whole trans?

Are rebuild kits still available for these? It pops out of 3rd and 5th if you take your food off the gas and simply won't catch 4th. This trans has 340k on it. I could always get a used trans that has 100-200k which would probably solve a lot of those problems.

Look 2 threads above this one

Ok, fair enough. I'll buy and replace the bushings.

Several of the threads reference the FWD shifter being different than the AWD shifter. Are they different but compatible or totally incompatible? I'm going to start looking for a replacement trans for this car and the AWD ones are easier to find and I have all the AWD rear stuff to swap this car over to make it work.

The main difference in the AWD and FWD shifter is how the front part of the shifter stay mounts. These two blow-ups will show the difference.

https://main.experiencetherave.com/suba ... Blowup.jpg

https://main.experiencetherave.com/suba ... Blowup.jpg

Ok that makes tons more sense.

Basically the mount on the AWD is offset to clear the driveshaft and the mounting bracket and equalizer arm (is that what we call it?) are designed accordingly.

And the reason I have to buy and replace bushings instead of a $12 joint is that the bushings are attached to the rods and the cross piece between them in a simple metal yoke vs the later style where the rods have the yokes on them and the bushing is installed in the cross piece between them.

So parts 13 and 33 in the FWD drawing (11 and 10 in the AWD drawing) are the bushings I need to replace (the part numbers in the sticky thread).

And furthermore, since the rear end of the equalizer link the shifter sits on, I can likely calm down the "popping out of gear when you get off the throttle" problem a little by replacing the bolt that holds the mount that goes to the top of the bellhousing (it's missing) and replacing the transmission mount in the rear.

Does that all sound correct

So the shifter arm and everything is the same between the AWD & FWD. It's just where it mounts to the transmission is different because the AWD transmission has a rear extension housing that is longer.

Yes, replace the bushings you mention.

If you want, you can replace the shifter stay bushings with aftermarket Kartboy poly bushings to stiffen up things more.

https://www.rallysportdirect.com/part/s ... hing-combo