Follow up RE: M5OD swap for something stronger!!!

RonSerling · Jan 9, 2018

Hello to our fine group of twisted, well at least I am lol, Ranger lovers. I am following up a post I made a couple days ago and have a very simple question I cannot seem to find an answer for. I was getting opinions on replacing my M5R1 with something stronger and I got a lot of feedback saying this is a pretty gritty little trans that could take a fair amount of abuse. So I have decided I am going to tackle the rebuild on it myself instead of letting some incompetent shop do it. Hey I am a great engine builder, I always seem to have real good success with the motors I build, so how hard can a gearbox be. My main question here is in looking it all over it looks pretty straight forward but there is one item I have not found any information on. When finalizing the installation of the input shaft you are required to shim the front bearing. My question is how do you determine how much shim is enough. I would think to many will cause excessive wear in the thrust bearing in between 3rd and 4th and to little will cause possible wobbling between the input and main shaft. So the question is how do you determine the proper amount of shims here to get it just right ??? Any other suggestions you can think of whilst I do this overhaul would also be appreciated !!

Thanks

bobbywalter · Jan 9, 2018

same as an engine. or differential.

get your fowlers or whatever you use out and measure.

math.

bobbywalter · Jan 9, 2018

best hard parts possible and consider cryo for gears.

BlackBII · Jan 9, 2018

The shim info is in the factory service manual:

adsm08 · Jan 9, 2018

IIRC the final check was to stand it on end, lay a straight edge across the bell, and measure the end play of the input shaft. Then you compare to the current shim and add or subtract from there to bring end play into spec.

The shim is to set the preload on the main shaft bearings. If the shafts or the bearing are not changed it shouldn't need to be changed either.

FWIW I have had probably 4 or 5 of these things open for various reasons including making a 2wd a 4x4, and I have never needed to change that shim out.

Make sure you have ready access to a press.

RonSerling · Jan 9, 2018

Thank you Thank you Thank you !!!

I just wanted to say thanks all. Black I just went and downloaded the manual for it and will follow the guides pretty closely. My main concern was the spacing as I wanted to make sure I got it correct. Nothing like wasting a trans over a simple five minute procedure to check clearances !! So parts are ordered, all the cases and housings are out in the chem tank so they will look handsome when they are all reassembled and hopefully by weeks end I will be back on the road with my favorite lil truck !!!!! Thanks again for all the help and suggestions guys !!! :headbang:

Shran · Jan 9, 2018

I followed the procedure above when I rebuilt mine - just required some quick math and the Depth measuring side of my caliper. I had to reuse the front countershaft bearing because some of the bearings in the rebuild kit I got from "gear5th" on eBay ended up being way out of spec and they couldn't fix the issue, but in any case, it was close enough to reuse the old shims.

RonSerling · Jan 14, 2018

gear5th

Shran I saw your reply and was curious as to what the issue was with the bearings from gear5th. I did another transmission with parts from them and it is still going strong, it was a Ford Toploader. If you think their M5 kit is lacking I will order my bearings directly from Timken as I have always trusted their products !!!!

Shran · Jan 16, 2018

Well. Maybe I was that one unlucky customer out of a thousand, I don't know.

Front countershaft bearing was too thick (their bearings are all made in India.) I went back and forth with them over several weeks over the phone and through email. They measured every bearing they had and none were within spec - simply not usable, I would have had to actually machine down a shim! The local trans rebuilder said that there were no shims available because it was so far out of spec. Timken I believe makes a bearing but it is $75 special order, almost as much as the rebuild kit was. They finally ended up just refunding the whole order which was fine by me but still very irritating.

Then they forgot to ship other parts that I ordered and were not very responsive when I tried to find out what was going on.

Other than that one bearing and the forgotten part, the kit was pretty high quality and worked great and I do have a transmission that works now but they were very frustrating to work with.

Follow up RE: M5OD swap for something stronger!!!

RonSerling

Member

bobbywalter

TRS Technical Staff

bobbywalter

TRS Technical Staff

BlackBII

Ranger Custom

adsm08

Senior Master Grease Monkey

RonSerling

Member

Shran

Junk Collector

RonSerling

Member

Shran

Junk Collector

Sponsored Ad

Sponsored Ad

Members online

Today's birthdays

Member & Vendor Upgrades

Latest posts

Truck of The Month

Recently Featured

Follow TRS On Instagram

Latest Album Photos

TRS Events

25th Anniversary Sponsors

Check Out The TRS Store

Sponsored Ad

Sponsored Ad

Sponsored Ad

Amazon Deals