varkwso

Has anyone besides me had the small u-joint at the front of the trans, and the rear of the manual shift linkage come apart?

I just put in a new trans and the linkage u-joint at the rear came apart while returning from the gas station - luckily it was stuck in 3rd gear and I got it home. All the pieces were captured in the TT bell housing but I ordered a new one from Dal. The real bummer is the trans had to come back out again . Josh and I had it out in a little over an hour .


The car has 129,022 miles on it and many of them are road course miles. But I know there are many cars with more miles on them out there.

I am now patiently waiting for the new complete linkage to get here from GM...

varkwso

I am the only one lucky enough to have this ujoint come apart? Wow

The new rod should be here tomorrow....

wallyman424

i've heard of a lot of things breaking on c5's, but the shifter mechanism isnt one of them.

you're a pioneer.

97coupechuck

yea, i know your exact feeliong, I had just installed my new tranny in 97 and got to the track, did two laps and the roll pin or dowel pin came out of the linkage, left me in 3 rd as well. I had just installed on the ground in garage, so you know i was hurtin'! I just took it direct to shop and paid, wasn't going to go thru that again. Next time i do an operation like that I'm going to get a lift installed.

varkwso

Geez - that makes me feel special. My parts guy in Ohio said he has never ordered this part before...and he orders lots of C5 parts.


97coupechuck - I know your feeling! I wish it had been the roll pin instead of the little U joint. The car would be back together now. In the end I am way too cheap to have someone do something I can do. It is not a real fun job though and no lift makes it less enjoyable.

davidfarmer

Makes you wonder if it might have been damaged during the trans swap. I pulled the trans once without removing the torque tube with it, and getting that shifter assembly apart is not an easy thing. I'm really surprised I didn't break anything when I did it (I just drop everything now)

Anyway, hope it is a quick and painless repair.

Cobra4B

Never heard of that happening... you have pics of how it came apart? Did it break or did something come loose?

0Randy@DRM

ON higher mileage, or abused cars we see them loosen way up. They just become sloppy. I haven't seen one break before.

Randy

racerwannabe

i feel your pain,,i just finished installing a fresh diff ,,the dealer sent me one built on a auto case and the speedo doesn't work...now to do it over...i thought i was the only one that has the silly set backs...i'm running at the nccc convention next week..hope not having the speedometer working doesn't upset the computer to much!!

Johnny

varkwso

It has mostly been driven on weekends since we have had it. It was a driving instructors car in CA before we bought it so we knew it had been tracked. As I stated it is 129,022 miles and this is the 3rd trans that I know about (last one was under warranty at 35K).

It did not "break" - the rear u-joint was so loose it "fell apart". I had two pins and ball fall out when we separated the trans from the TT. The collar was still roll pinned to the trans. I was able to put it all back together - it will be a cold day before I reinstall that rod though

We pulled it out the first two times as one unit (TT & Trans). I installed it this last time with TT already in - I found it much easier this way. Pulling only the trans this last time let me keep the headers bolted up and the TT in also. Feeding the shift linkage was not really tough and did not bind up last time. But I am also doing this without a lift and a trans jack only.

LG Motorsports

We run ours in the World Challenge race cars for one season then change them.

We have had one break so we don't take any chances. We put new ones in every 10 race weekends.

Thanks
lou G

varkwso

My new one came in on Friday after we left for Rockingham. It was amazing the difference in the new one then the original one off the car. Very tight versus floppy. We put it in today - a world of difference in the tightness of the shifter - and now I have a 6 speed with reverse instead of one forward speed. It is now at the alignment shop - but that is another post....