Tranny Problem

[danronian]

Well for a while my car was whining while driving and I was thinking it was the studdable snow tires but it turns out to be different... I was driving today and when I let off the gas I heard this soft clunking shaking the whole car. At first I thought it was a flat and pulled over but of course that wasn't it. As I drove it home with my four-ways on going 30mpg the clunking progressively got worse and worse. I put the car on jackstands and turned it on in first gear and I heard the tranny making some loud grinding and scratching noises. (THe car didn't clunk while driving in neutral and also clunked in every gear regardless of speed.) I looked in the troubleshooting section of my car manuals and they all pointed to the differential being shot. THe question I have is: do all of the 5-speed transmissions from the 3rd gen accord bolt up to my car? ( I found this thread about transmission codes, http://www.3geez.com/showthread.php?t=35970, but I don't really understand if this pertains to me at all.) I am confident me and and my dad can put this thing in with a new clutch if I can just find a used or possibly rebuilt tranny to replace mine. I just don't know if just any manual 3g tranny will fit or not. My plan is to either find a supercheap used 3g with a manual tranny which I can drive to confirm the tranny is good good (which I already found but it is an eighty six and I am not sure if it is a manual or not, I have to call tommorrow), or to go to the u-pull-it yard and find a tranny in a wrecked car that has around 120k mi or less on it. Any suggestions or comments would be appreciated.

[AZmike]

Any 5 speed from an 86-89 Accord would work. The final drive is a little higher in the FI cars. You could also use the transmission from a fuel injected 85-87 Prelude. The ratios are listed here:
http://www.3geez.com/showthread.php?t=165

[danronian]

Any 5 speed from an 86-89 Accord would work. The final drive is a little higher in the FI cars. You could also use the transmission from a fuel injected 85-87 Prelude. The ratios are listed here:
http://www.3geez.com/showthread.php?t=165
Thanks for the response because I really need this car running soon and I was afraid I was going to have a hard time finding a specific 89 accord fuel-injected manual tranny. The reason I wasn't sure is because this Chilton's manual I am looking at says the transmissions are not interchangeable but I figured it was wrong since 50% of the time non-honda manuals are wrong. Now the guess work begins in trying to find a good used tranny.

[danronian]

Well I found a 30 day warranty j/y tranny for $175 and they said it would only be about $300 to install it with a new clutch (minus the price of the new clutch). Since this is my only winter car and I need it to be done fast I think I would rather just spend $300 extra to get it done by someone else. It would be different if I had a spare winter car, but oh well, I don't right now. On top of this damn cheap install price the tranny this j/y has is off an 89' lx-i so I won't be switching to a crappy performing carb tranny which also makes me happy.

[jaiden]

did you find the tranny online or locally? I will be needing one soon, and for $175, I'll just buy it now and let it wait till mine goes.

[danronian]

I found it ten minutes from my house by just calling all the junkyards in my area. If you have some time to find one you should probably just go to a u-pull-it yard b/c if you can find a wrecked car with around 100K mi. on it it'll be alot cheaper if you pull it yourself and don't have to get it sent through the mail b/c the shipping will probably cost more than the used tranny from the junkyard.

[danronian]

SCORE!! The $175 tranny shifts perfect and makes no grinding noises! The problem is that when they removed the speedo-sensor they just pulled the hoses off of it and transplanted the one from the other tranny into my car and they drained out all of the HONDA steering fluid and replaced it with ATF. I saw the red and could smell the fluid so when I got it home I replaced two bottles of honda fluid in place for all of the red crap I could drain off myself. I just hope my seals and everything powersteering can handle a bit of ATF b/c even though the liquid isn't pure ATF anymore, nor is it pure honda fluid.

[POS carb]

lol cheap idiots
flush out the rack, but about the old tranny, does the noise change with speed or with RPMs? if it's a diffriential problem it should change with speed (I think...)

[danronian]

Yeah the noise changed with speed, but that tranny is gone and replaced with a used one that is perfectly noise free. The noise was just a loud whine for months but then in a few seconds went from a quiet to very loud clunking noise. I got it home and once it cooled down it was fine until I drove it to the j/y to get the tranny put in and then it made a very loud scraping/grinding noise out of the pass. side window while I was driving, I kept it under 30 mph and it made it about 12 miles so I can't much complain.

[danronian]

I changed all of the ATF out of my power steering that I could but how do I completely flush the system so the fluid no longer has a pink tint?