Dave WM

I can disassemble it pretty quick to test the output shaft for out of round. I just cant justify installing when it makes this much sound. When I spin it at max speed with the drill the warble turns into a near constant grumbling, not unlike what I think was the orig noise I heard when installed in the car the first time. Only chipped gears was the rev idler, no worse than the JY one I got that does NOT make the sound. It DID have a broken oil gutter when I got it, but it was intact did not seem to go thru the gears just right to bottom and stuck on the magnet. The rest of the gears show no broken teeth. The only other thing was the badly gouged up rear bushing, I attributed that to the lack of the oil gutter to send oil back to it.

more like a cyclic rubbing sound, I will make a video of it an post later, pretty sure its not a dirt/gear issue, I was careful to keep it all clean and did not open the new bearings until just before assembly. what bothers me the most is when I removed the front and rear housings and spun the input shaft with the dirl there was a considerable about of vibration that seemed to go with the sounds I have been hearing. It only shows up when spun faster than can be done by hand. this was with just the adapter plate mounted on the vice.

double checked the counter shaft gear mounting did it per the diagram. marked the 3/4 sync before removing and triple checked that installed correct. I am almost thinking a bent output shaft at this point.

well I checked and I installed it as per the diagram, AND I saw no evidence of rubbing on the front housing. Its really odd turn it by hand and very smooth, but as soon as you spin in with the drill, it gets that rubbing inside the bell housing sound. Maybe not rubbing in the housing at all but that is the best way to describe it. even very low RPMs it will do it, very consistently. I tried the drill on the other trans, no odd sounds. If I did not know any better I would think I have a bent main or counter shaft. At this point I am tired of messing with it, had it apart 5 or 6 times now. I even tried spacing off the bell housing, no change. I spun it with the housing off completely (just the bearing plate in the vice). Hard to say as it seemed to want to wobble pretty bad doing that. hard to hold the front plate on to try and align the front bearings. The wobbling at speed bothers me. I guess the only way to know for sure would be to disassemble it again and check the main and counter shaft for out of round. I will have to put that off as tired of messing with it. I guess the take away is I had a pretty loud noise and never really found a seriously bad part. some of the bearings had some noise but I think that may have not been the issue. I can't imagine how a shaft could be bent but I cant think of anything else to account for the warble sounds.

hmmm is it possible to put the counter shaft gear on backwards? any offset to the gear, if so that may explain the sound, if the gear is too far forward, coming into contact. There is no mention of this in the FSM but looking closely at the drawing of the shim it looks like it maybe. If I installed it backwards (if right about that offset, sure looks like it on the pic) then I presume there could be some interference with the case or the main gear. I just don't recall noting it during the installation.

all back together, I test spun it with a drill, I get an almost wa wa metallic rubbing sound that seems timed to the counter shaft. It seems loudest at the very front of the bell housing. The timing is based on the wa wa not syncing up with the main shaft but with the counter shaft (I pulled the rear housing off and could see it clearly matching the counter shaft staked nut). There is not much that could make this sound except I presume the counter shaft gear somehow coming into contract with the front housing. I did reinstall the front cover and did have the shim and it seemed the correct thickness per the spec sheet for the bearing measurement. Its loud enough I think to leave a mark so I will pull the bell housing and see if there is any evidence of contact. I may even just space off the bell housing 1mm and see if the sound goes away. this is a real bugger. But the upside is recent trip to a local JY produced a very good example of another ZX 5 speed. I cleaned it up, replace the obvious leaking seals examined the gears, still had some chipped rev idler, must be a common problem. I spun in up on the drill and it sounded great. I am not going to do anything else to it, the bearing looked and sounded good as well. Its nice to have something to compare to. I will prob install this latest one and just keep working in the noise issue from the rebuilt one. At least I have some confidence in my use of the drill to spin the input shaft. Will know for sure if the newest trans that passed the drill test sounds good once it is installed.

Oh ok, I remember my brake lights (I was thinking brake lights, not sure if that is the same as "parking" lights) being active regardless of key on or off. my bad. I also see the tail lights are not hot (+ goes thru switch under pedal, ground is continuous, I am used to seeing the ground be the switched circuit) unless the brake switch is activated. oh well. ha timely post one of my brake lights is burned out!

One more thing, you may want to remove the access panels and take a look at the tail light sockets and wiring, IIRC have read about issues with shorts back there.

yes but with the light on you can monitor the testing with less risk to the existing wiring. the light introduces resistance to the circuit and protects the wiring from constant loads (at least until the fuse blows). The light will be on but the brightness will vary as you turn things on and off and hopefully enough of a change in brightness for finding the short.

One trick you may use is to wire in a 12v light in place of the fuse that keeps blowing. If it lights brightly, you have a short. You can then move wires around and see if you can find the issue. Move the wires around that you suspect. Disconnect the battery anytime you are messing with the fuses or connecting the test light (I use insulated alligator clips). One slip while installing fuses or hooking clips up can result in a blown fuse.

yep, need to become a mechanic if you want to own one of these cars. You may be lucky and be somewhere near a good one, but they are hard to find, esp that know how to work on cars of this vintage. The good thing is these cars are extremely easy to work on, and the cost of tools needed is not that great.

don't need the spacer or bearing just the gear. I don't know as I did not try it with oil, but I did tick even when flooded with oil during the assembly (I literally poured gear oil on it while I was testing). It was actually louder when the assy all back together (before I took apart to start searching for the source of the tick), I guess with the bearing plate bolted to the alum it just acted like a sounding board. After the noise sidelined me on the 1st try I did not want to put it all back in with any known problems. That being said I do not recall ticking but more a loud grumbling noise which I assumed was bearing noise. it was so loud it prob would have drowned out the ticking if it was there thru the oil. when I 1st got it and did not do anything but seals and the gear, I did not do an extensive bench test for noise. It was not quiet and I assumed that was normal, much better now, but for the tick (that's all I hear, before there were other noises as well, part of my lack of experience as to what "normal" is.

I just examined the two idler gears under bright light and a magnifying glass. the old chipped up but no ticking idler gear shows noticeably more wear by looking at the back side where the gear teeth are cut flat (the front side is rounded more to help engage the non syncro reverse gear on both gears by design, so looking a the back side make for easier comparison). I assume the countershaft gear has a like amount of wear. I therefore would guess the uneven wear is setting up some kind of impact that is resulting in the ticking.

a little background on what ZH and I are talking about.. after I put the trans back together (see my multipart video) I give the input shaft a test spin. It has a noticeable tick tick tick, very regular high freq (every few degrees of turning the input shaft results in a tick. At 1st I was thinking of the oil gutter, pretty sure it was not a bearing or gear rubbing, too regular. So I took the trans apart back to the gear cluster in the adapter plate mounted on the vice. spinning the correct direction results in the tick, reverse the direction and no tick. I used the mechanic stethoscope to trace the sound back to the back side of the bearing plate, then down to the reverse idler shaft. Confirmation was done by removing the idler gear, no more ticking. For those that may not recall I had a chewed up idler gear, Zed Head was kind enough to supply a replacement (NLA 23t gear). I used that idler for the rebuild. It would seem that best practices would be to always replace gears as a set, it seems the counter shaft (small gear pictured above) needs to go with the orig gear. I temp replaced the old chewed up gear and no more ticking. To further test the directional sensitivity of the noise I remounted the mis matched gear but did it backwards, resulting in the ticking now happening when the input shaft was rotated backwards. There must be some odd wear patterns that result in the tick with the mis matched set, hopefully the gear above will resolve. in case anyone wondering the reverse idler will not work when mounted backwards, at least not without some machine work and or thrust washer changes and then you still have to grind the teeth so they will engage the slider gear.

that's it!!

fuel mix not right vacuum leaks, unmetered air, ECU, Sensors, ign timing, smoke from burning oil from warn out engine, valve guides, seals, rings, pvc issues, wrong oil. one thing at a time, start with a compression check, then check ign timing, then fuel pressure test. Need a lot more info before a meaning remote diagnosis can begin.

started re assembly. All going according to plan. I had to figure out a way to jig up some things for pressing the bearing and shafts etc... not hugely difficult, just a bid fiddley. Mostly I used 1" and 1.25" steel pipe like used for plumbing. its comes pre cut in various lengths. that and some mounting flanges for same pipe to act as stands. then the normal sockets for various drifts. I followed the FSM sequence, you have to put things on in the right order to prevent creating situation where a gear is in the way of another gear. I have some videos I will post up later, since you tube got rid of the video editor, they will be raw, uncombined etc...

roger that. After posted I did some research, seems gas fusion (oxy/ace torch and just heat up ant fuse) is discussed a lot for thin sheet metal (not as hard as mig). I am sure welding is an art form that takes a lot of practice to get really good at. Hope to give that a go some day.

I am not a body work guy but was wondering if using a file to cut the weld down may work better to control heat.

interesting pic, I know the ZX shifter is a lot shorter than the Z to start with, those extra bends would make it sit even lower. Would like to see what it looks like installed.

so the new inner races for the needle bearings should be here soon, hope to start the assy process. Question on using press, do I set the gear end clearance during the press in cycle? FSM has you press the main shaft in with 1st and 2nd installed. I assume I should be checking those to spec as I near the full press in position. Seems like I could "over press" pushing the main shaft too far into the adapter plate bearing. The FSM has you going that far then pressing in the counter shaft with the main gear on the front of the CS not installed. the 3rd gear goes on after that part of the CS is pressed in, then finally the main CS gear and 4th (input shaft and gear) go on together.

looks nice. I am not a carb guy but since you were having a question about rich looking plugs in another post, you may want check into the status of those air cleaners. they look to be K&N if so I recall they need regular service which includes cleaning and re oiling. If plugged up may account for a long term rich run.

before drawing any conclusions you should get new correct plugs, drive for a week and pull them again. For all you know those plugs could have looked that way when installed (used plugs). It happens. If the car is not smoking, pulling strong, no misfires, chances are it need nothing but running.

how long were those plugs in use? do you drive it aggressively (open it up and rev up to 4-5 k between shifts or do you loaf around at low rpms a lot)?

choke function working correct? (wont start without it, pulling it when warm makes engine stubble rich).