Sound like a bolt sheer?

[primalzer1998]

Driven along today, nothing spectacular not driving fast or anything. Try to shift into 3rd and it grinds goin in. Then everything goes to mush, can wiggle the whole thing in a big circle. I've been reading up on it, and it could be a bolt or something? I can see the counterweight moving back and forth under the hood, but its not engaging at all. Anything? I can't really do much because I can't wait around because im going back to school. It is currently sitting at a trans shop. Please tell me this won't cost me a lot of money....

-Jon

 

[morbid]

Sounds like you sheered the head off. If you fix it yourself, it'll be pretty cheap. If you take it anywhere, you'll get raped many times (over and over again). I helped a local CEG'er with this problem... it cost him a couple $'s for the bolt from Ford, and then tranny fluid. If your tranny is stuck in neutral, then you have a simple fix. If it's stuck in a gear.. then it is a huge PITA to remove the tower... but it's doable. You'll also need a small ez-out to extract the rest of the bolt.

 

[primalzer1998]

Well it looks like im gonna get hosed. I don't have much of a choice, I'm at school in Macomb and the car is in Chicago (about 250 miles away). So I dropped it off at a trans shop, and I'm gonna have a friend look over it and make sure I'm not getting screwed too hard....How much of an estimate for the entire job you thinks?

 

[98TredSVT]

seems like a trans shop won't know about this common svt issue so they might take a longer way of fixing it and spend way more time diagnosing the problem than necessary, maybe you should just tell them what needs to be done. BTW Are you going to Western? I know some people that go there.

 

[morbid]

Most shops will want to pull the tranny... maybe even pull it apart. That equals big labor $'s. They might also want to replace the tower instead of just fixing it. All you need to do is:

1) drain the fluid.
2) pull the shift tower.
3) extract (ez-out) broken bolt from tower.
4) fish out the bolt head (flexible magnetic thing.. from the tower hole, and/or the fill/drain holes).
5) Take the 2 bolt pieces and ensure they fit perfectly. If not, repeat #4 to get missing pieces.
6) Insert new OEM Ford bolt.
7) Reinstall tower.
8) Fill with new tranny fluid.

That's it. If the tranny is stuck in a gear, then removing the tower is much more difficult. Also, you'll need to remove the tranny mount... I can't recall if you need to do that on a non-stuck tower, but you have to if the tower is stuck.

Also... if there are wear marks on the bolt head (like the gears tossed it around), then (after completing all the above steps), drive it around for a while until you're sure the fluid is hot, then change out the fluid so any metal flakes will be drained out -- hot flush.

 

[primalzer1998]

Yeah definitely if I had the means to do it myself, I would be all over it. But because I am at school I have access to no tools what-so-ever, no place to do any work, etc etc. I am really just stuck in the position I am in...I am going to try and relay the information to the shop and see if they can just do it this way without tearing apart the trans. I've put a cap on $1000 in labor and parts, if it's anymore than that, I'm gonna have to get rid of the car.

 

[primalzer1998]

Well for anyone that can't do it themselves for whatever reason and takes it to a trans shop, replacing just the bolt and flushing the trans is going to cost me somewhere south of $500 for labor and everything. I mean it hurts the behind a little, but I guess it could've been much worse...

-Jon

 

[todras]

What do you mean flushing? There is no flushing on an MTX. Take them 3 qts of synchromax yourself once the tower is repaired.

 

[primalzer1998]

I meant replace the trans fluid, every where I've looked about this problem it said replace the fluid. But when i talked to the tech, he said that it wasn't necessary that the bolt had sheered cleanly into 2 pieces. He said he checked it with the new bolt. He then said the fluid was full and he didn't see any reason to replace. Now I always error on the side of caution, and if I was doing it myself, would have replaced the fluid. But is there really any chance of something still being in there? And if there was some small shavings in there, how much damage could it really do?

-Jon