Does this gearbox look useable?

[Blue Calibre]

Seeing as it looks like the gearbox is terminally ill in my mk2 cavalier sri. Dug this spare one out the garage today. Its been sat for years in the garage and I don't know any history of the box. Wondering if anyone who knows gearboxs could tell me if it looks useable or not.

[lee303]

doesn’t look bad at all from the pics, i would get some scotchbrite and remove the surface rust on the gear selector drums, but the teeth and what you can see of the synchros look fine

[Blue Calibre]

there's a slight bit of pitting on the selector drums would that be ok to just clean up?

[Pitstoppete]

pmsl. loving this.
yeah! it looks alright from a couple of out of focus pics!
it's not good advice fella.



maybe a strip and clean, as it's out anyway, is the only way you can tell what condition it is in?
that'll give you a chance to get right inside to see the faces of the syncros, the bits that actually wear that is! and peel the guards off the bearings to clean them out and view any crap in there.

[lee303]

why is it not good advice? i said it doesn’t look bad from the pics? and it does look very clean, with hardly any burrs on the synchros (which you can see all of without a strip down) that are near standard on 2nd hand boxes nowadays, obviously if it spins and sounds like a cement mixer look at the bearings more closely, but as you say, they have dirt seals?

[Pitstoppete]

it doesnt look to bad from what can be seen without x-rays specs I suppose, but, whatever the condition of any teeth you can see, how can you tell if the the grooves on the syncros are alright? are they full of swarf? are they all worn out and going to be crunchy as hell?

[Tathan]

maybe a strip and clean, as it's out anyway, is the only way you can tell what condition it is in?

Did you consider that he doesn't know how to do this, otherwise he wouldn't have asked whether it looks alright?

I'd just clean it down and stick it in, see how it goes. Doesn't look obviously ****ed.

[lee303]

it doesnt look to bad from what can be seen without x-rays specs I suppose, but, whatever the condition of any teeth you can see, how can you tell if the the grooves on the syncros are alright? are they full of swarf? are they all worn out and going to be crunchy as hell?

personally i would be happy enough with just selecting the gears a couple of times to check if the splines were clear, if they were likely to be full of **** i would say the rest of the gear set would not look so clean either, really not masses more you would learn by stripping it down imo

[Cavalier-C20LET]

quick answer jon give it a wee clean, bang it in , will be better than the one you have in just now

[lee303]

[Pitstoppete]

wang it in then, hopefully it'll be fine

[Blue Calibre]

Yeah I've never ventured inside a gearbox before, just wanted to know if on the face of it wether it was useable. I didn't know if the pitting on the gear selector drums would render the box scrap. Was no swarf or metalic bits in what oil was left in it. Was a circlip stuck to the swarf magnet though. The imput shaft turned easly by hand, wasn't silky smooth but figured that might be because of the lack of oil and with it standing for so long. Worth giving the gear cluster a quick clean in something then re-asembling?

[lee303]

yeah, petrol or similar wouldn’t hurt

[Cavalier-C20LET]

parifin or as lee said petrol mate yes no harm in giving it a going over

[Tathan]

if you degrease and wash out thoroughly with a pint or two of petrol to get all the crap and swarf out, then put a few drops of oil on, it should turn smoothly.

[Blue Calibre]

Right sounds like a plan, thanks for the advice.

[Pitstoppete]

pic of the circlip?

[Blue Calibre]

As requested


Took the old box out the car today, there's a noticable amount of play up and down in the imput shaft. (Had a knocking noise comming from the gearbox once the car had been idleing for a while that would dissapear with the clutch depressed.) The friction plate springs had also been catching on the flywheel bolts. Do you I'm right in thinking it'l be down to the imput shaft moving, allowing the friction plate springs to hit the flywheel bolts?

[Pitstoppete]

clip is most of an input shaft outer circlip, which sits behind the M7 torx bolt inside 5th gear etc.. this is the one you remove to withdraw the input shaft if you are changing the clutch the quick way. it might be an old one that's pinged into the end case. Slight concern where the other end of the clip is! that could be the cause of :-
a noise that goes away when the clutch is down could well be the input shaft end bearing by the splines, almost certain if you have a fair amount of play. could be your drive plate is well thin too.

[Blue Calibre]

The circlip is out the spare gearbox. I thought it might be the imput shaft circlip, will take the 5th gear cover off and see if I can find the other part. Is there supposed to be any play in the imput shaft at all? The drive plate was thin but I've seen much thinner with out any problems.

[Pitstoppete]

input shaft play should be tiny.

you should see the circlip, if it's there, in the centre of the gear with a multispline torx bolt behind it. tricky to spot.

[Blue Calibre]

input shaft play should be tiny.

you should see the circlip, if it's there, in the centre of the gear with a multispline torx bolt behind it. tricky to spot.

I think you were right with where the circlip came from. A larger circlip had been fitted to the torx bolt in the imput shaft. Didn't find the missing part of the circlip though.