Thread: Friend Installing T5

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I .. we.. need help! my friend has rebuilt my 283 and we're trying desperately to install this T5 Tranny, he's got the bellhousing and all the junk ready to go on, we're having trouble inserting the transmission's pilot bearing into the.. whatever you call it. Does anyone know of an easy way to get 75lbs to fit up into this motor?

We're installing this motor/trans into a '82 Datsun 280Z so we want to install everything at once and not do it seperately. And we don't have the spare change for a Transmission Jack to put the tranny in after the motor.

Anyone with some little tricks of the trade to help speed along this process?

The pilot bearing seems to be giving us alot of trouble.

OK, problem is I really can't tell for sure what it is your having problems with....

"....Does anyone know of an easy way to get 75lbs to fit up into this motor?...."

If it's trying to stab the transmission into the clutch disk and pilot bearing, You need a clutch alignment tool or old input shaft to hold the clutch disk inplace while you tighten the pressure plate down. A hint here is tht it generally works better if you holt the alignment tool up a little whiole your tightening the pressure plate insteatd of just leting the clutch disk just hang.

I'm don;t know for sure, but you should also check to make sure the ID of the pilot bearing is the right ID to go over the input shaft.


".....we're having trouble inserting the transmission's pilot bearing into the.."

If the problem is getting the pilot bearing into the crank flange, it should simply drive in (generally I use the stepped handle that comes with my seal driver set, it's aluminum and doesn't tend to mess up the hole the input shaft goes in).

If the pilot bearing does not fit properly there is a chance that you have the wrong one. While all 283 cranks were drilled for a pilot bearing even if they were used in a automatic car, the 283s used with a turobglide had a different size pilot bearing hole than the ones used with powerglide transmissions. Car Quest used to handle both pilot bearings, but you had to specify which crank hole size you had.

Yes, I know this because I found out the hard way several years ago.

Um. well this block came out of a 66 impala powerglide..

And i'm guessing it's not going to fit?

EDIT: We do have that clutch alignment tool (the plastic thing with all the teeth on it?) and we inserted it with some assembly grease to see if we were diving all the way into it; we are. But is it really that hard to put a transmission on by hand? it feels like it fits to a point and then we're held up. The splines are biting but the pilot isn't diving it. Could it be our angle that we're approaching?

I've got a '68 307 I'm connecting a T5 to. I've already counted splines and test fit everything, It really shouldn't be that bad to put the transmission on by hand...i did a couple test fits with a big buddy of mine while i checked everything. If its not plugging in then there is another problem that could be the one stated by Mike. i really like the T5. you should be happy with it once you get everything plugged in.