Looking good!! I did a old ami box over a year ago. Rick advised me to replace the diff and output shaft bearings as well, as these + the 2 top shaft bearings are the minimum for a box rebuild.
Before I rebuild my box I often had teeth brushing when I changed into 3rd gear once the gearbox oil was warm, which is typically a worn syncro ring. Since I didn't have and could get hold of a replacement (old ones are slightly different) I washed the syncrorings out with petrol and got a lot of grey stuff out. This helped a lot, because now I don't have teeth brushing into 3rd anymore. Maybe something you could do too.

Will you reshim the lower shaft and diff again? Do you know how to do/measure that? I can't tell by hard but should be able to find out how I did it.

Good luck!

Bart, I'm new to gearboxes so forgive me if i'm misunderstanding, but are you meaning that loads of grey stuff came out between the inner grey ring and the golden middle one in this picture?



If so, i had a lot of crap come out from there too as I was cleaning - flakes of what seems like old gearbox oil and tiny metal grains compressed to a paste. It mostly just disintegrated when i tried to pick it up.



The synchro springs turned up today, so i pulled the one off of the 2nd gear pinion for a look. I could see the wear grooves that I've seen mentioned elsewhere, but they didn't seem too bad. Do they really have such a big effect? Also, is replacing the rings just a case of sliding the new ones over the narrow end of the pinion? I'm a bit worried about distorting them.



Final question, haynes tells you to inspect the components for wear. What am i looking for, exactly?

Martin,
Re. "Final question, Haynes tells you to inspect the components for wear. What am i looking for, exactly?"

1. Synchromesh mechanism worn to the extent that the cones sit too far into the outer casing.
Difficult to tell from the angle of view in the first picture, but if I'm not mistaken, those have sunk a fair bit.

2. Synchromesh clips heavily worn, as in last picture...

Don't worry about having to expand the springs to fit them, just don't haul them about too much. I find a set of these to be very useful when working on gearboxes.

http://toolstoday.co.uk/sealey-miniatur ... tAodE1QAjA

back to the start whats the state of the bearing in the output shaft that had the disitegrating shim? wondering if it had spun the outer race at some point - ie some foreign body in the rollers

Ordered both top bearings today from a local supplier. should arrive tomorrow and i can go pick them up. I've had a look at all the bits of the box after their petrol bath soak and everything seems remarkably good for the most part.

Collar has already been peened by someone in the past. the surface rust appeared yesterday, i doubt it is an issue.



Sunchro cones all seem to sit flush with their respective outers. Not sure if this is good or not but at least they all seem to have worn at the same rate.



The diff is a different story - Sean mentioned looking for damage to the bearings on the side with the disintegrating shim. Had a look at the opposite side first so i would have an idea what a decent bearing should look like - that side looked okay aside from some pitting on a couple of the rollers...



However the damaged shim side was a different story - pretty much every roller is pitted, with the cage that they sit inside being damaged too. It was hard to get a picture of but the edges of the cage seemed very rough in places, almost like they had peeled up slightly.





Am I looking at new diff bearings now too?

I'd be tempted to say the 'good' one was buggered!

Yes. They are cheap. And with new bearings the shimming comes very important, it is not so difficult as many say. Thes shims are too very cheap, and most of them who are been "messed up" with gearbox, they have plenty of them...

Indeed, any sign of pitting of a roller bearing component means it's 'game over'...

Okay, they shall be replaced too! Seems like this is turning into a full overhaul rather than just the input shaft bearing, but its also a great learning experience

Diff carrier bearings now added to the order, so I should be able to collect them tomorrow too.