Project RS

[ScottyB]

well, shit.

over the past month a puddle of gear oil has been getting bigger and bigger under the car and i've started having to top off the tranny every week or so to keep it happy. its dripping from the bellhousing which means its the input shaft seal...not uncommon. prepare for the ultimate "while I'm in there" debacle...

so i've gotta drop the tranny and split the gearbox case to reach the $10 offending seal. but here's the thing, at 120k miles now, if I'm already popping out the input shaft to swap this dumb seal, I might as well also just go ahead and do new input shaft bearings, particularly since these are the bearings that aren't fully bathed in gear oil and and because the input shaft isn't as well supported as the shaft below due to having to reach out over the front diff....so they tend to wear out quicker and are responsible for most 5 speed deaths that don't involve tearing the teeth off the gears from flat-brimmed yo-boi abuse.

i can slide the seal and front bearing off without trouble. the big rear bearing has to be taken off and put on with a press....naturally.


and, because i'm still on the original clutch, and its getting soft, has a bunch of rallyx launches on it, has a lot of shudder on cold mornings now, and is probably full of gear oil....i'm just going to go ahead and replace it. with a better clutch. and a lightweight flywheel. might also upgrade the transmission mounts. because rallycar.



yeah i could probably just do the seal, get an OEM clutch disk, and resurface the stock flywheel. but, i intend to keep pushing the car hard in local rallycrosses and i don't really want to replace it with anything right now as a cheap kid hauler. this thing doesn't really owe me anything so i guess i'll just keep it reliable and more fun when the opportunity allows.