Manual Transmission - Part 1

Today is the first day of my Transmission and Driveline course. When the class begin, my lecturer paired me up with my classmate Shane to work on a gearbox. We been given the transmission practical workbook and service manual, then I started to realise that the most important things that I need are not with me -- my tools! But fortunately, Shane has brought his today. And I don't have to end up either just sit there watching other students doing their works or running up and down borrowing tools from others. And yes, lesson number one I have learnt today, always bring my tools with me regardless where am I, as a mechanic.

We started to dismantle the gearbox step by step by following the instruction from the service manual after a pre-dismantle check. We skipped measuring the trust clearance for 5th gear as we only have one working Dial Test Indicator (DTI) left, and the lecturer will demonstrate the setup and the use of it on one gearbox the next day or so to the whole class. This was my first time using the puller and a special tool with a big round synchro teeth head with long handle. The special tool was used to hold the 5th gear fixed synchro hub, and then the 5th gear was pulled out from the transmission with a puller and spacer. And also another type of 'clamp' lookalikes puller being used to pull off the 5th gear fixed synchro hub. 

I get to know and seen many different types of components in the transmission during the process of dismantling it, like the detent mechanisms, the selector shafts, reverse shift bracket and so on. The thing that interest me the most was the interlocking mechanism of  the 5th- reverse shaft and 3rd-4th selector shaft. There is an interlocking ball in the hole of the bracket that will move in between both shafts and it will lock one of the shaft from moving when the ball slide into the groove of that particular shaft. For example, if I wanted to pull and remove 3rd-4th selector shaft and it jammed, the interlocking ball might sit in the groove on the shaft stopping it from moving. I will have to lift and hold the 5th-reverse shaft for it's groove to be on the same horizontal level so that the ball can slide over and free up the 3rd-4th selector. 

I then counted the gear teeth for gear 1 to 5. I found it easier to mark 1 teeth with liquid paper to start with, and then mark again when I counted to 20 and so on and so forth. And I managed to count all the gears just before the first practical class finished for the day.