msp LSD in Mp3 tranny questions

[shoelessdavis]

Three weeks ago my 1st and 2nd gear shift fork broke and my car/ trannsmission was stuck in 1st gear. A couple of buddies and I take out my transmission and I used the write up ( how to on this forum). No major problems. My buddies step dad owns a mechanic shop here in my town. He told me if we could get the tranny out he would take a look at it with me and help fix it in his spare time. I took the my mp3 tranny with just over 50,000 miles on my car and tranny (50,308) at my house in my garage. We take the tranny to his shop he looks at it and that when I found out it was the 1st and 2nd gear shift fork. A new shift for cost $80 dollars at dealership.

I decide to Get ACT clutch with street organic disc, Fidanza Alumiunm Flywheel, AWR mounts, Corksport SS clutch line, and some Lucas oil while I have the tranny out. ALso I want LSD. So the Quailfe LSD was to much. The Mazdaspeed LSD is around $600 or $4?? if you can get the member discount thing. SO I find a mazdaspeed trannies on www.car-part.com from $1,000 to $1,200. But I would still have to put the pink speedo gear in it. SO I found I 2003 mazdaspeed tranny with a bad case for $450 plus shipping. $515 shipped. So I can take the gears and LSD out of the mazdaspeed tranny with bad case and put in my mp3 tranny.

I get the mazdaspeed tranny with bad case for $515 shipped. Gets here take apart modify the LSD and differential thing from mazdaspeed tranny to fit the pink speedo gear thing from the mp3 tranny so my speedometer will work. So the we crack the pink speedo gear. Thought I would have it done that weekend. Order new pink speedo gear. a week later put it on. everything goes good. Put the tranny back together. Check and double check to make shure all gears work and are shifting and everything that we could see while the tranny was out.

Put new Fidanza flywheel and Act clucth disc and pressure plate on. Put the AWR front motor mount on. Hook up SS clutch line. Put throughout bearing in tranny. and put pilot bearing in the Flywheel. Used locktite stuff on bolts on flywheel. Tighten up all bolts on clutch. Put tranny back on. work on a couple of hours each day for a couple of days. Get eveything back togetherand Lucas 80w-90 gear oil and blead the clutch.

Here is MY MAJOR PROBLEM. The car runs but will not drive. It will shift through all gears and reverse while you are sitting there with clutch pushed in. The clutch works fine. It will rev up. (I will add it revs up alot faster with alumiunm flywheel. The shifting also feals better with the Lucas oil. I put 3 quarts and a little of a fourth bottle and then it started to run out of the tranny so I new it was full. I was able to push the mp3 out of garage in netrual so I assume it is not the axles. The axles and intermediate shaft went back in fine and everything is hooked up correctly. I tried to put it in 1st gear and take off like normal but slowly let out on clutch and give gas but it goes no where same thing happens in reverse. It will not back up. It acts like you have the parking brake on and you are trying to take off but worse you can't go anywhere. My dad thought I put the clutch in backwards. There is no way I put the clutch in backwards. I have no idea what my problem is. other than it is in the trannsmission or LSD. I just finished this last night and I am still extremely pissed off about this not working and not looking foward to taking the whole transmission out again. after just finishing and it should be working.

I have spent over $1400 in Clutch kit, flywheel, mazdaspeed tranny, awr mounts, clutch line, oil, and varies other things while doing this plus the labor of doing it myself. None of which was a christmas present. My Christmas present was air composor and air tools.

Anyone have a clue what is wrong with my car / tranny and what are some things that I can check to see what is wrong? I got to get the fixed ASAP.

Please help.

 

[xelderx]

So you saying that the clutch grabs and wants to choke the motor down like if you try to move with the E-brake up?

 

[xelderx]

Oh...and I was wondering who bought that broken tranny. I was going to get it, but they had already sold it. Looks like I might be the lucky one after all. Also look for threads about broken LSD's. Were there any wierd noises?

 

[roni]

Did you take any pictures of the internals of the tranny after you installed the LSD? If you do have them, post them up and we'll try to help.

 

[shoelessdavis]

there were not any noises at all. it just would not move.

 

[roni]

Did you bleed your clutch properly? Maybe it's just not disengaging into the gears?

 

[ddogg777]

were you able to spin the main shaft before you put it together?

 

[Mike R]

Sounds like the trans was put together wrong.

 

[MikeBlueP5]

from what i understand the MSP axles are different fromt the MP3/P5 axles. Unless you are using the MSP axles that might be your problem

 

[ddogg777]

from what i understand the MSP axles are different fromt the MP3/P5 axles. Unless you are using the MSP axles that might be your problem

The rumor is that the outer ends (CV) of the MSP are different, not where they attach to the tranny. There shouldn't be a problem.

 

[MikeBlueP5]

ah thanks for clearing that up

 

[shoelessdavis]

The clutch was bleed properly, I even did a 2nd time to make sure. I talked to a rep at corksport yesterday about 5 times. He told me it could be the axles. So to check he told me to lift the car up in the front, and take the drivers side axle out, then get another person to start the car and try and take off in 1st gear. That way I could see if the differential was turning in the tranny. The differential did turn which more than likely means everything in the tranny is working and it the axle should be causing the problem. So I am going to replace the drivers side axle and see if that makes my car work. That is kindof good news that way I don't have to take the whole tranny again. Here is another problem though. Do I get a mazdaspeed axle or an mp3 axle? Will the mazdaspeed axle fit beccause I think it has ABS and the mp3 does not have ABS. When I talked to the rep at corksport he told me also to count the number of spline things on the axle from my mp3. I counted and recounted and came up with 28. He had a mazdaspeed axle from something from one of there cars and said it had 28 on it also which he thinks means that the mp3 axle should work for me because those numbers are the same. He said he did not have any axles that I could buy, he thought he did at first.

Where Do I get axles from? I called Autozone, Advance Auto, NAPA Auto Parts, and O'Reily Auto parts. None of them have axles for the mp3 or mazdaspeed or have access or able to order the axle. O'reily said something about the could get the passanger side. I called the dealership and asked about the drivers side msp axle and it was $5?? dollars and I hung up on them. That is crazy to have to pay over $500 for a axle. If any parts store would have them one axle would be anywhere from $60 to maybe $200. Most cars you can get both axles for around $200. I think these are rebuilt and you have the core charge but still. I can handle $200 or so for axle or axles to get my car running but over $500 for 1 axle, crazy. And I am not 100 % shure my axle or axles are the problem.

Should I get an axle from a junk yard? www.car-part.com? That is where I got my tranny from. I am finding drivers side axle for the mp3 and msp from $65 to $150. I found 1 rebuilt one on that site.

Should I go ahead and replace the passanger side axle if I get both axles from junkyard?

Also if my differential is turning does that mean my tranny is problly ok?

 

[shoelessdavis]

were you able to spin the main shaft before you put it together?

I was able to spin everything before I put it all together. I checked everything before I put it all back together.

 

[shoelessdavis]

I was thinking that When I my tranny 1st tore up and got stuck in 1st gear maybe there was something else that messed up when that happened that I did not find like the axles. We searched all through the tranny to make sure there was nothing else work with it. So maybe my axle could have messed up when my shift fork broke or the axle could have messed up when I took it out.

 

[MikeBlueP5]

if it were me, i would either try and figure out what is different between the MSP/MP3/P5 axles then go from there. I know they are different, im just not sure which part of it is. TheMan might be able to help you, he seems to know a little about the protege. Try shooting him an email with all the details of this post, including whether you are using the MP3 or MSP output of the tranny.

 

[shoelessdavis]

I told the rep at corksport everything that happened and everything I was doing mod wise and the whole story about everything. And I told him I posted here on the forums.

 

[JONBOY688]

sounds like a clutch problem, if the axles were to small it wouldnt coke the motor down, it would spin the axles in the tranny and u would be able to hear it. and p5 axles and msp axles are not the same. splines are the same only diff is the od on the shaft.

 

[TurfBurn]

there is nothing different on the axles or LSD (other than the diamter of the overall shaft... NOT of the splined end). Plenty of us have MSP LSD's in our MP3's and the like. They mate up just fine no issue there (make sure they are seated all the way... NO gap between the green CV and the transmission itself.

Who re-assembled the tranny? Reason I ask is there are several possibilities... first of all try pushing the car with it in gear. I'll bet it moves just fine.

Do you feel any resistance going into first and second and how hard is it to grab reverse... if they are all really quite easy then someone assembled the shift fork towers wrong or got the riding collar messed up. There are a LOT of little things to watch for in that transmission. My write up shows a lot of it... but not all of it I'd guess...

Let me know what the tranny does when it is "in gear" and if you get any gear noise when you rev it or try to move it in reverse.

 

[shoelessdavis]

Got the car and tranny to work again. I took out the tranny today by myself in about 2 hours. It was not the clutch or flywheel, or axles, or LSD that was problem. It was stuck in netrual. There was this sleeve thing that goes on the rod next to the 1st and 2nd gear shift fork. I do not know what it is called. Once i got the tranny out I took it to Bennet's Automotive, which is the same place I took it before. It is a local mechanic shop in town where I live, but they don't do transmissions on a regular basis. My friends step dad is Mr. Bennet and owns the shop and helped me out. We looked at it a found out about this piece and the it missing something. It was part of the gears and everything that we took out of the mazdaspeed tranny from junk yard that I got. when we put back together before we didn't see this part, and it would let us shift threw all gears but we didn't check buy putting axles and trying to turn everything then in trannsmission before we put tranny back into car the first time, that was our mistake. We wouldn't have had problem if we checked that. Anyway, got couple extra hands to put tranny back in tonight after fixed this part today in the tranny I used the good part from my left over guts and gears from my mp3 tranny. Put all back together and put back into car. Everything went pretty good. Also had to go buy some more Lucaus oil for tranny again but o well.

My car runs great so far EXCEPT reverse is extremely extremly hard to get into gear. and even harder to get out of gear. It goes into 1,2,3,4, and 5 fine and shifts fine through all those gears with NO problems and no noises. At first reverse was not even working. u have to use two hands sometimes to get out of reverse. What could be problem? I put a little over 3 quarts of oil in tranny until it started to over flow on the side plug that is on front of tranny in front of car. I only drove around the block a few times then started to raining so I will wait until tommorow to drive more and it is late and I worked on car car for more than 10 hours today. Does it just need to break in more? Why am I only having this problem in reverse? anyone else have this problem? any ideas on what the problem is if it is a problem. It will get in reverse and I can back up. I losened the 2nd shift fork rod thing up some and helped a little but I do not know if that is a good thing or bad?

 

[TurfBurn]

you may have messed up the alignment for the reverse idler gear. There is a bunch of stuff for that... reverse is a weird gear and works different from the rest. I'm guessing something got messed up inside for that one. If you keep using two hands you will soon break a fork.