Put the drive shaft in the transmission when checking input shaft end play. The driveshaft is what centers up the whole transmission. It is why the tailshaft bushing is so important in a T5. If you havent replaced the bushing and its high mileage you should. When I did mine, I had almost no input shaft play. The transmission was extremely hard to shift when hot. I took another .010 out of the shim and now it seems pretty much normal. It might still be a little too tight. When i was talking to a trans shop, he said the input shaft should have some side to side play. Mine has about 1/8 of an inch when the drive shaft is installed and im probably going to remove another .005 to see if i can reduce the required shifter pressure a little more in lower gears. 3/4/5 are basically like stock now. 1/2 is still a little stiff. I use laminated shims from 5speeds.com. it makes setting endplay easy. Ultimately, what I am saying is, dont make it too tight, if it has 1/8 to 3/16 of an inch side to side play it should be good. If when you put it back together its harder to shift, its shimmed too tight. Make sure to orient the bearing retainer correctly. The larger notch behind the bearing race/shim goes at the bottom

 

I don't understand why the driveshaft would impact end play? Once you've got it shimmed and retainer installed, isn't the process flip the transmission so the tail is pointing up, bop the output shaft lightly with a rubber mallet and then push up on the input shaft and measure how much the output shaft moves with a dial indicator?

 

Using the driveshaft yoke keeps everything aligned. I've talked to 2 different people who build transmissions for a living. Both of them set endplay on t5s by the amount of side to side input shaft movement with the drive shaft installed. The way you're describing plus .010 because all the bearings were new is how i set mine up the first time, It was too tight

 

Sorry, you've got me confused - are you saying you install the driveshaft and then shim to remove sideplay? Or that you install the driveshaft, put a dial indicator on the input shaft, and then pull on the input shaft?

 

You want side to side play on the input shaft about 1/8 of an inch total with the driveshaft installed. You add or remove shims to achieve that. How much side to side play did you have before and now? If you have too much preload when it gets hot, the input shaft and main shaft squeeze the flat bearing between them creating friction energizing the input shaft which makes it hard to shift.

If everything was working fine before you did the bearing retainer swap, add more shim to tighten it up a little. .005 at a time until you get it where you feel it was. Youll know if its too tight when you drive it. Make sure you seat the bearings by hitting the input and output shafts with a rubber mallot or soft faced hammer. Are you using anaerobic sealer to seal it? That is the only sealer you should be using.

 

hello, its been a while since this post was started but ive been having some shifting related issues, basically my 89 foxs t5 shifts a bit notchy especially in the lower gears (1 and 2) NO grinding whatsoever, mostly everything is all new (clutch, tob, pilot bearing etc and has a new quadrant and firewall adjuster) but every so often at stops and lower speeds it doesn't want to shift into first or retirees way more effort then i would like. Now I know this sounds like a dragging clutch, however its a bit more complicated. i have had it up in the air and recorded the trans output/drive shaft. as i was shifting through gears (engine running) i kept shifting until i got it to the point where it doesn't want to shift into first. i would have needed to really force it to go in but i did not. I kept pushing on the shifter just before it shifted (never actually put it into 1st). I replayed the video at this point and you can see the drive shaft want to turn quite a bit (the wheels never spun when shifting i did that check before). That would indicate the clutch slightly dragging causing the input to slight spin the cluster shaft which is constantly spinning the 1st gear and as i am trying to shift into 1st the sycnro is working way harder to slow down the 1st gear and is not able to slow it down due to the slight drag. Here where it gets confusing, if the clutch is dragging even a small amount wouldn't i grind going into reverse? i do not grind when going to reverse (if i jam it in right away when pressing the clutch then yes i will but that's normal) but after a few seconds when the clutch is technically supposed to spin down it does not grind or anything. so how could it be dragging in 1st and not create a grind in reverse?

the reason i replied to your comment is becasue when i had the trans apart (the issue was there before i had it apart, i took it apart because of this) i noticed my input shaft had absolutely 0 side to side play and im pretty sure the end play was 0 as well. It did not move a hair, now i see that you mentioned the preload could affect the shifting, i will need to confirm my end play as i do not remember 100 percent how much movement it had for that but my side to side was like a solid rock 0 movement as well as my tailsft bushing is the original and the yoke is fairly worn. When i was shifting with the trans out sometimes it shifted a bit hard as well but that was without the lever.

so here's some key things i would like to mention,

new clutch came with tob and pilot bearing (was a cheap LUK kit) could the pressure plate or disc be faulty?
new pivot ball stud
clutch is fully adjusted (no mater how i adjust it mostly the same)

Any insight would be greatly appreciated!!!

 

I’ve always set mine by the procedure in the service manual. The laminated shims from 5speeds.com are great and I usually towards the tighter side of spec assuming it will loosen up a tad as the mileage grows

https://www.tremec.com/anexos/TRSM-T5-0510-R1_173.pdf

section 6-11 and 6-12

 

i wonder how much the case grows when it gets up to operating temp? And-how does that affect end float?

 

I never did one before. So I bought all the parts, new gears, everything and used the videos from Paul Cangialosi and Eric The Car Guy on Youtube. I want to say he used a different method, using an inch pounds torque wrench or something. It's been a couple years, so I don't recall exactly. But it was my first time and it works perfectly. I do remember making mine on the tighter side also, figuring it would loosen up a tad as it broke in.