So ever since I bought my T/A, it's had a bent 3rd/4th shift fork. I picked up a steel shift fork on ebay and also snagged an overhaul kit so i could replace all the blocker rings and seals and such. Finally I got up to my friend Jason's house this weekend to do the job.

Around 7:00pm Friday, I arrived at the shop which is the old Glen Lyon, PA fire company. Jason bought the building a year or so ago to use as a shop. It's awesome for working on cars, as you'll see.

After a couple hours of cleaning up, moving things, preparing the shop, etc, we pulled the car in and put it up on jack stands.

We got to work at removing the transmission which required removing other parts first and also took some creative thinking to get to the upper bell housing bolts.

Finally, the transmission was on the workbench. We proceeded with opening it up and disassembling parts. Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of this part of the process, as we were really greasy and working hard at it, trying to keep out any distractions.

After getting the tail housing off and removing the reverse driven gear and synchro assembly, we needed to remove the 5th/6th driven gear cluster. This required a little bit of creative thinking by extending a 2-jaw gear puller to reach the gear. We cut and drilled a flat metal bar to extend the jaws and hooked it around the 6th driven gear. We started cranking it down and the gear wouldn't budge. So we applied a little more force, making sure the puller was nice and straight on the gear. A couple more turns and we heard a faint cracking noise. We immediately released the tension on the puller. When Jason took the puller off the gear, i saw something fall off the one jaw. Crunching sounds and falling chunks scare me. Then Jason says "I figured out what made that sound. He points for me to look at something and here's what I see:



I've done some research, calling Tremec, etc. Apparently Kent-Moore makes a tool specifically designed to remove the 5th/6th gear cluster on a T-56. Interesting. Now I just need to find one.

If anyone has any other suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

Cliffs: Gear puller + stuck gear = broken stuff!

 

Email or PM LS1Joe they will take care of you. Seems like I remember they loaned the tool out for us do it yourselfers. From everything I have read and heard about them(Amber, Joe) their customer service is top notch.

 

It does not matter now how you take that gear off since the teeth are already damaged( thats the 5th driven gear BTW not the 6th) . Just re-adjust the puller you have and get it off the shaft.This is a common error of the inexperiecced. Learn and move on = the right tools for the job. Do not be tempted to re-use that gear.

 

You do have to remove the 5th gear and 6th gear before it will come off. It looks like in the pictures you still have it in there. We have never been able to get it off unless the 5th and 6th gear are removed. Just pull straight up on the 5/6 cluster shaft.

Thanks,
Amber

 

That's interesting. I left them in because the Tremec service manual says to remove the 5th/6th driven gear first. I'll definitely try removing the drive gears first and see what happens.

Just out of curiosity, why haven't you ever been able to remove the driven gear without removing the drive gears first? Is it just a clearance/ease-of-access thing? Is there something else at work that's holding that driven gear back?

Hopefully I'll have better news and a new picture or two later this evening.

 

The only times we have tried the teeth on the 5/6 driven becomes damaged and we have to replace. There is not enough clearance to safely remove the 5/6 driven without causing damage to it and the 5/6 cluster with gears. We have ALWAYS removed the 5, 6 and 5/6 cluster to access the 5/6 driven and remove it. It works quite well for us.

Thanks,
Amber

 

I haven't had any problems pulling the driven gear with the others still in there. Thats how I always do it. There is no clearance problem with the tool either. It will hook onto the driven gear just fine. Alldata also says to remove the driven gear first, but I really don't think it matters.

Don't worry, I broke the first one I tried to remove with my home-made tool too. The part # for the tool is a J-39431 Kent Moore / OTC tools. If you plan to do more in the future, its deffinately worth the money.

 

That is the tool that I use. Works every time without damaging the gear. I picked mine up off ebay for $35. I think it is around $90 new from Kent Moore. Go to www.spxkentmoore.com