Stock Galant GSX Transmission Rebuild Questions

[PoiBoi]

Howdy, I've got an incredibly stock 1991 Galant GSX I picked beginning of this year from Adam over at Sodo-Moto. Sadly this past month (what I believe to be) my intermediate shaft bearing has gone up. No chunks or anything in my fluid, however there is alot of play in my in my intermediate shaft, enough to let the nut under load grind against my transmission cover housing.

I'm looking to rebuild my GSX W5M312VQBK trans and there are a few thing I'd like to know before I start tearing it down. I've heard that (besides being a weaker transmission all together) some of the bearings in the NA W5M312 trans are weaker than the ones in the W5M332s the turbo cars came with. Will VR4/Turbo DSM spec bearings fit the GGSX trans? Are the synchros different sizes than the vr4/Turbo DSMs or is it all the same? Are all 91 shift forks identical for these year cars?

I havn't had much luck searching the forum for alot of this information, if I blinded it my apologies.

 

[wowzer]

I hade the Canada version of the GSX and the problem I had was the coupler went bad. The GSX trans are great for the long gears, but they are weak and tend to have issues. I blew the viscous coupler on mine with stock power. The problem I had was finding said part at the time was impossible. I know a few others have had issues as well and found that changing to a turbo trans helped. I would try and find a drivetrain out of dsm that you might be able to swap over. You will need all the drivetrain parts and mounts.

I doubt the bearings are the same as the cases are a little different. I will try and get OHB to answer that.

 

[PoiBoi]

I hade the Canada version of the GSX and the problem I had was the coupler went bad. The GSX trans are great for the long gears, but they are weak and tend to have issues. I blew the viscous coupler on mine with stock power. The problem I had was finding said part at the time was impossible. I know a few others have had issues as well and found that changing to a turbo trans helped. I would try and find a drivetrain out of dsm that you might be able to swap over. You will need all the drivetrain parts and mounts.

I doubt the bearings are the same as the cases are a little different. I will try and get OHB to answer that.

Thanks for the response, he reached out so I'll hit him up when i get a second to breath from work.

Funny enough, mine is also a Canadian GSX. First owner bought it new, importer i got it from picked it up at his estate sale. I've been trying to track down a turbo manual awd trans and diff but i havn't had much luck so far. We'll see.

 

[hpt_simon]

if the box is too far gone to rebuild, and full 5th gear assembly is ok, i would buy this, ;P

 

[holeshotmoe]

Get the VINs for the cars whose transmission parts you want to compare. Using CAPS you can drill down to the gears, bearings, shafts and other parts to compare their part numbers. This is how I figured out a 2G-ish trans from a 94+ AWD Expo (NNXL) would work in my 91 GVR4.

 

[iceminion]

You didn't mention if you had considered contacting a transmission rebuilder specific to our cars, there are several that I can personally recommend that are experts in rebuilding/upgrading/retrofitting these transmissions, and do it at a fraction of the cost of normal transmission shops. Transmissions might be the one place where you have to save up and spend hard earned cash.

 

[PoiBoi]

if the box is too far gone to rebuild, and full 5th gear assembly is ok, i would buy this, ;P

Sorry, not interested in parting with it. Its super healthy bar the bearing, synchros still feel snappy and the gears all look pristine. I got lucky with it and would rather save it and reuse seeing how difficult it was to get my hands on another anyway.

You didn't mention if you had considered contacting a transmission rebuilder specific to our cars, there are several that I can personally recommend that are experts in rebuilding/upgrading/retrofitting these transmissions, and do it at a fraction of the cost of normal transmission shops. Transmissions might be the one place where you have to save up and spend hard earned cash.

I hadn't had much luck finding a shop locally that would even bother to look at it. Surprised me that so few do manual transmission work anymore but thats the current market I guess. I'd be fine with getting someone to do it properly, however freight costs kind of make this prohibitive for me (unless there's someone in the DMV area who does this kind of work). Car currently has a replacement Trans from a turbo chariot with a matching 4bolt lsd*, so i'm in no rush too fix this one. I would love to earn the knowledge to fix this myself too, since I forsee having to do this kind of work with both of my cars in the future anyway. I'm no stranger to internal mechanical work.

*the trans/diff on the car currently was intended for my project car, this ones the daily, the plan would be to refresh the old trans and put it back on the car

 

[splattj]

Jon @ TRE still builds these and may have parts he'd sell. Stuff is getting exceptionally difficult to find for GVR-4 and DSM transmissions. He keeps threating to buy a gear hobbing machine to start making his own stuff.

 

[PoiBoi]

Jon @ TRE still builds these and may have parts he'd sell. Stuff is getting exceptionally difficult to find for GVR-4 and DSM transmissions.

I'll have to see exactly what I need and reach out. I've considered TRE and Jack's for a full service however the distance/freight cost just kills it for my circumstances. They both seem to do fantastic work but it is what it is.

He keeps threatening to buy a gear hobbing machine to start making his own stuff.

My work is on the edge of getting a full grade CNC replacement for our current gear, very tempted to try my hand at some odd parts. I've been slowly CAD'ing parts off my cars for posterity, i'll have to give the trans internals a run over when i have it apart. I do want to start sharing some of the 3d models sometime, figuring out how best to host them.