Well, I know a guy who has a couple A-833 OD transmissions laying in his shop, but he said that one of his friends went through them for parts, so before I go up to look at these, what do I want to make sure is there between these transmissions, if I remember correctly he said I could mix and match parts, so as long as everything is there between the set of them I'm good, right? I just want to know what parts are hard to come by and replace, and also the expensive parts.

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Annabelle: 1970 Dodge Dart Hardtop
1991 Nissan 240sx (sileighty) Lots of mods
1974 Dodge Dart *Wrecked*

Obviously the mainshaft, gears, and countershaft gears will be the spendy parts if any are goofed up. The synchros and seals all come in a kit so those are replaceable.

To make sure you have a good core you will have to disassemble some of the box. Trouble spots include:

1) pull the cover plate and check to make sure the cover plate bolt holes did not crack an scab off into the case (happens if the box is rebuilt and the bolts are tighted too much, or the rebuilder used longer/wrong bolts to hold the cover plate.
2) Pull the bearing retainer, the inner race that hold the input shaft bearing pin place should be smooth, if its badly worn there will be a groove in that flat spot, it will be a replace or spot face and reclearance.
3) Gear assemblies changed over the evolution of the boxes from 1975-1987. The gears and counter gears must have matched 'sets'...it's been a while since i've counted the pairing but the early (like 1975) gearsets have the overdrive teeth at 22 on one gear and 33 on the other...the later sets are finer pitch and are something like 33 to 44, I discoverd this while trying to mix and match sets from a late 1975 dated tranny and a late 1976 OD tranny.
4) The side plate may warped and you will have to goop it to seal it regardless.

-D.Idiot

from my experience the countershaft will wear at the ends that the roller bearings ride. there will be a ridge that you can feel and see if it has worn. also the aluminum case will round out up front and allow the shaft to move out of alignment. check for worn gears and make sure to get all the small parts, shims, roller bearings, springs, balls etc.

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Hyper_pak

x2 what Hyper_pak said, the 1975 Iron cases are stronger and the countershaft won't "egg" out the holes, but the case weighs a ton.
When the gear is in OD the forces on the gears tend to try and spread the two shafts apart placing wear on the countershaft there (in this tranny 3rd gear is 'direct' which locks the input shaft to the mainshaft so all the power goes from the front to the rear, in OD it goes almost to the front then down to the countershaft then back up the mainshaft while you are applying lots of continuous torque to the assembly).

If you are pulling it all apart, the nose of the mainshaft rides in a set of roller bearings inside the end of the input shaft, if a lot of power was passed through the tranny in OD or if the unit was abused...or if the unit did have the proper lube (or lube that would keep these bearings happy), the nose will be galled and may need a replace, if you have it repolished you may need to research a new set of rollers with the proper diameter to meet the tolerences (sometimes just easier to grab another shaft from another unit).

You can also check the dog teeth to make sure that they have a nice diamond shape, if abused they can flatten or be offset from "power shifting", if this happens some gears will be hard to shift into even with new parts or it can pop out of gear as the collar wont engage properly.

If you don't feel you want to do the work yourself, Dave's transmissions on South Commercial has done quite a few of these (and rebuilds other transmissions for the local mopar club members), stop by tell him that guy with the duster referred you and see what he says.


-D.Idiot

I replaced all of the gears in one of the iron case units once, and the big ticket item was the cluster gear. It was an oem piece from Borg Warner, and cost nearly $300. I paid only $50 for the case, so the entire project ended up cheaper than a good rebuilt unit in the end, plus I learned a bunch. As DI said, these things weigh a TON. My memory might be faulty here, but I think I weighed it at 125 lbs, as compared to around 65 or so for the aluminum case. The extra durability is worth it if you plan on doing much highway cruising though.

I got all the gears and rebuild parts from K&S in Upstate New York.

Doc was very helpful in the rebuild. He walked me through several of the steps over the phone from CA to MD. Thanks again Doc.

Sam

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