I have a complete FD Ricambi 5-speed syncro transmission in my 650 powered Fiat 500. It has been flawless for 12,000 km but last week 5th gear just gave up. Driving along in 5th, it suddenly went away - just spins. All other gears are fine. Pulled the engine & tranny and removed the nose cone and top cover yesterday. The top shaft is moving fore / aft quite a bit. Both bearings are sliding on the case where I would assume these should be a press fit. Does anyone know what holds these bearings in position? It moves so far forward, the gear on the end disengages the lower shaft gear completely.
Technical Transmission problem - internal shaft / bearing question
- Thread starter marcus550
- Start date
Currently reading:
Technical Transmission problem - internal shaft / bearing question
I ran into this same issue/observation when i was re-assembling my trans.
It is completely normal. The front nose housing, has a lip that holds that bearing pack in the place to prevent it from sliding forward/backward.
It is completely normal. The front nose housing, has a lip that holds that bearing pack in the place to prevent it from sliding forward/backward.
Loosing 5th. (while still being able to shift into it). Likely means a spun keyway if mechanically everything looks intact.
I would check the small keyway/ballbearing. in the final (small) 5th gear (end of pinion shaft/speedo drive) to see if that gear happens to be free spinning on the shaft.
Please update us with the results, as i am curious what the failure modes are for the 5th gear conversion trans.
I would check the small keyway/ballbearing. in the final (small) 5th gear (end of pinion shaft/speedo drive) to see if that gear happens to be free spinning on the shaft.
Please update us with the results, as i am curious what the failure modes are for the 5th gear conversion trans.
It's been a while, but I'm now back to tracing this down. More information: I can shift into 5th and it 'clicks' in with no issues. It seems to stay in 5th (ball pressed into the shaft detent) and it takes some force to pull it out, just like all of the other gears. So, shifting feels normal. I drove the car for the first time in a year and could shift into 5th but it pops out after 20 seconds or so. If I forcibly hold it in 5th, it stayed for maybe 45 seconds and then forcibly popped out and the speedometer immediately went dead. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and Reverse all work fine. I just pulled the speedo drive out of the transmission and the gear is sheared off of it! I'm here looking to see if the tranny can be removed separately or do I need to pull the engine/tranny out together. AGAIN. It obviously has to come apart.
There might be a chance that you can pull the end gear cover box off without dropping the engine out of the car. Might require some some creative jacking and stands and to lower the front of the trans down. Obviously there's an end play issue or an alignment issue going on, and now that is has finally failed, should be straight forward to see what the failure is.
Something is definitely misaligned, especially for the speedo gears to get stripped off.
With that said. i took a closer look at this photo. something is definitely off.
The 5th gear should be aligned flush with bottom output shaft gear. And in this photo (with the bearing pressed flush against the box), it looks like 1/2 of the gear is meshing with the bottom half.
This would definitely cause an issue with 5th wanting to jump out of gear, if the upper fork and hub sleeve fingers cant fully engage because the gear is sitting proud.
The small gear just after the case bearing, its shoulder should be sitting flush against the bearing face. and it looks like theres a 1/8" gap
Something is definitely misaligned, especially for the speedo gears to get stripped off.
With that said. i took a closer look at this photo. something is definitely off.
The 5th gear should be aligned flush with bottom output shaft gear. And in this photo (with the bearing pressed flush against the box), it looks like 1/2 of the gear is meshing with the bottom half.
This would definitely cause an issue with 5th wanting to jump out of gear, if the upper fork and hub sleeve fingers cant fully engage because the gear is sitting proud.
The small gear just after the case bearing, its shoulder should be sitting flush against the bearing face. and it looks like theres a 1/8" gap
Last edited:
The 5-speed kit has a long tube-shaped nut on the top shaft. This was finger tight, I was able to unscrew it easily. I watched a video on how this is supposed to go together and noted this should be torqued at 36 ft.lbs. AND there should be a set screw. My set screw was also finger tight. There was no indention in the tube nut for the set screw to lock into. So, I torqued it down, scribed where the indention should go, removed and drilled it. Put it all back together and used lock-tite on the set screw. Got it all back together and in the car today and...5th gear works. What a lot of freakin work for this! But I'm glad it's solved.
