Vlad's rides thread

[OZ38]

I can only assume they haven't sorted the seal issue. But if you want to buy one and check it out yourself, if it's no good, I am happy to get yours fixed with mine.

I have purchased & received one of the steel retainers.
Have no idea if the seal area has been fixed to better locate the seal, as I also have been way to busy to even look at it.
Need to get my stock one back from a Machine Shop in Maddington Perth to measure it up for comparison, as they have done nothing with it for me in over 8 months.

[vlad01]

You'll know straight away if it's right or not, the seal in mine just fell in almost under it's own weight. The factory one needs a socket or appropriate tool and a reasonable about of body weight to force it in and is easily damaged due to how hard they are to push in.

I still haven't had a chance to get mine sorted either. I am first looking at converting my input shaft and main shaft to the tapered bearing that is used in Cobra T5s, so I want look at that before confusing my machinist with too many jobs at once. My 500 buck "good" used input has some pitting on the thrust bearing face, so converting to the Cobra style eliminates all those issues and then some, allows reuse of the shaft in future rebuilds as long as the teeth and dogs are good, so eliminating the reliance on both the thrust face and inner roller bore being good in combo with all the other stuff being good, those two bearing surfaces are prone to issues more than the other areas of wear and damage seen in these boxes.

After the mod, I'm sending it off for REM polishing to increase life and durability and also correct the finish left from the gearbox guy blasting it with glass. There are 3 tiny pits on the tooth contacts that Tremec said was fine, but I figured the REM finish will smooth off and relieve stress points and hopefully should prevent any further pitting/chipping. Then everything should be good for decades hopefully.


Sucks that these input shafts are hard to get in any usable condition these days, no one is considering having them made despite the less common V8 versions being reproduced for quite a few years now.

[OZ38]

I still haven't had a chance to get mine sorted either. I am first looking at converting my input shaft and main shaft to the tapered bearing that is used in Cobra T5s, so I want look at that before confusing my machinist with too many jobs at once.

I also went down that path source the tapered roller & cup for the T5G.
In the end there was going to be a lot of work to convert. Plus the snout on the main shaft has to drop quite a few millimeters in diameter to fit the tapered bearing.
I went the V8 T5 ratio input to suit V6 T5 as I could get that brand new for under $300.

[vlad01]

I'd do the same if it wasn't for every non v6 shaft being way too short. How did you get yours to work? I am assuming you are referring to the new Holden V8 shafts you can buy? I looked at them, but they were about 40mm too short compared to the V6 one.


I have everything ready for the mod of my shafts either way, just waiting for Tony from Astro to give me his opinion on the cup fitment tolerance in the Cobra shafts so I can inform my machinist on roughly what fit to machine it out to. The front retainer is just a drop in fit, but I have a feeling the input shaft pocket is some form of press fit going by a comment in PMs with Tony, this is what I want to confirm, and also take into account a loss of 10 micron after the REM treatment.


Btw, the tapered bearing is just the off the shelf Timken set #1, so super cheap and common. I rebuilt my shitbox's T5 the year before last and all the bearings I needed I just got from the bearing shop, there was nothing special for most of the bearing in them. They literally have all the numbers written on the old ones, so easy to get a replacement for most of them.

[OZ38]

I'd do the same if it wasn't for every non v6 shaft being way too short. How did you get yours to work? I am assuming you are referring to the new Holden V8 shafts you can buy? I looked at them, but they were about 40mm too short compared to the V6 one.

I bought a new custom Input shaft from ATC (Australian Transmission Components) as they had a branch in Perth WA at the time. The story was some well recognised transmission rebuilder has organised them to manufacture the V6 T5 input shafts with the 24 tooth gear so it would match up with the V8 T5 ratio gear sets available. They had made 10 of the shafts & only sold 1 or 2 when I was researching. The shaft was about $244 at the time from memory. I then purchased new genuine T5 (BorgWarner/Tremec) complete V8 ratio Gear set minus the Input shaft from "thegearbox".org. As they could sell & deliver to me from America cheaper than the ATC mob could. Had them all Cryogenically treated & rebuilt my T5 G/Box.

Funny you mention Tony from Astro, as that is where I got the T5G Taper Roller bearing & Cup from.

[vlad01]

How long ago was that? I searched and asked lots of companies for years for something like that but always got told there wasn't a market, even for a short run. Judging by that price I assume a long time ago? You can't get a new input for any T5 now under 500-700. I hadn't heard or come across those guys you mention before. I would have gone that route too if I had.

The only new option for the v6 that I know personally for sure is the PPG straight cut gear set with input and 5th. They only make the v6 and the falcon 6 set for the Aus saloon 6 cylinder series racing. But they are somewhere around 6k AUD for a full set, I have my eye on getting one one day for my last project I have stashed that is if I ever able to make any sort of income again. PPG are considered the best in the world when it comes to motorspot gear sets.


I pretty much buy all my new components from Tony now as he has pretty much the full range and can get stuff he doesn't list easily enough and is very helpful, I often talk to him via the ebay messages since he runs just out of ebay now and no longer a website and he's helped me out heaps with specific questions and clarifying stuff. He has genuine parts where he can still source and only good aftermarket. Thegearbox.org was my main source years ago, but they can't get a lot of what Tony still can anymore and some of their range aftermarket stuff (upgrade parts) can be questionable (at the time I last bought from them) but the quality of aftermarket T5 stuff has really come up in the last 3 years I'd say.

Last box I built on the cheap for the shitbox, I bought all the main bearings from a bearing shop in Melbourne, but next time I'll go to Bendigo bearings which are still awesome because CBC bearings service, knowledge and range have gone to shit after closing and sacking their best branches after covid. Most you can still buy off the shelf and they aren't expensive and this is a cheaper way than those bearing only "rebuild kits" sold online, I think people charge around 500 for such a set, the bearing place was like 260-280 bucks iirc? All the bearing sets have numbers on them, so it's a non issue knowing what you need to buy. This time however I bought the full "Ford motorsport" rebuild kit from Tony which included all bearings, this is the full genuine Tremec overhaul kit, all small parts, blocking rings, and bearings, O rings, roll pins etc.

[OZ38]

How long ago was that? I searched and asked lots of companies for years for something like that but always got told there wasn't a market, even for a short run. Judging by that price I assume a long time ago? You can't get a new input for any T5 now under 500-700. I hadn't heard or come across those guys you mention before. I would have gone that route too if I had.

The only new option for the v6 that I know personally for sure is the PPG straight cut gear set with input and 5th. They only make the v6 and the falcon 6 set for the Aus saloon 6 cylinder series racing. But they are somewhere around 6k AUD for a full set, I have my eye on getting one one day for my last project I have stashed that is if I ever able to make any sort of income again. PPG are considered the best in the world when it comes to motorsport gear sets.

Facebook told me it was about 11 years ago I was rebuilding the T5.
Pretty sure you were also rebuilding a T5 at that time, as I was looking at pics of how you set the preload for the cluster set with a dial type Inch Pound load tension wrench.
Made me go out and buy one for myself to also set mine up that way.

As for special Input shafts, I approached G-Force Transmissions in the US of A. They agreed to manufacture an Input shaft for our V6 T5's that would match up to their performance gearset offerings.
Unfortunately, they wanted me to send them an example Input Shaft & then commit to a run of 25 shafts (minimum) & pay upfront for all 25 Shafts. Worked out to be $6600 AUD at the time.
Well, that didn't happen
Who would do that ? As you would have to also commit to buying the rest of their gearset to fit into your T5 housing. You would then be stuck with 24 Input Shafts that could only be sold to people also committing to buy the G-Force matching gearsets to suit their Aussie V6 T5's. Win win for G-Force, but not so good for me.

I think when ATC committed to manufacturing those other Input shafts they didn't make the Transmission guy who requested them to pay upfront. So, they felt like they had been stitched up to carry the cost for something that wasn't a big seller. I believe Mal Woods Auto might have used one (at least) as he offered a V6 T5 with V8 ratios option if asked.
I still wonder if he was the original requester for the shafts to be made by ATC ???

[vlad01]

Do you think they would still have those shafts? Assuming they have stored them correctly, they would be a good option for the V6 guys now where all the V6 OE boxes are basically rat shit from people swapping them all the time and as a result most get stored outside and ruined and guess which bit gets ruined, yep, the input shaft as it's directly exposed to the environment when not installed in a car.


Malwood is a pita, never gets back to me and I always hit a dead end with them. I gave up dealing with them last year when I was trying to get something sorted for the hydraulic bearing in my nephew's V6 4Runner. That's still not finished btw, but we have the Dellow kit and that actually fits, just been waiting for the engine mounts and a few things to be fabed since Feb.

[vlad01]

I found ATC and I actually have dealt with them before recently without realizing it was them you were talking about. They are in Wagga Wagga now and they don't deal with Tremec stuff anymore, I was trying to get a genuine overhaul kit last year from them as they are listed as an authorized Tremec dealer, but they no longer were I was told, so I very much doubt they have those shafts as I was telling them what I was doing with my box and I am sure they would have mentioned the shafts if they still had them.


Anyway, I have prepared all the stuff and made print outs with the general instructions of what I want done and my Timken set 1 arrived, I bought two actually, so they can sacrifice one for any back and forth measure/machining adjustments to get the height right.

I have given them all the old thrust bearing so they can measure up the stock height as reference.

[vlad01]

Randomly checked out Clarko's page and saw this. Wish I found this earlier, would have saved a ton of headaches! I have reached out to see if he does V6 ones which I assume yes given he makes all of this for speedway. He is a really top bloke and we had a number of discussions before.

I would be comfortable getting one and discussing any potential issue and having them sorted, rather than what happened with the mob I used.

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