metaruss

Another few months since the last update (better than almost 2 years).  Not much has changed with the car except that it has been my daily driver since the trans blew on the Shadow in early June.  On a positive note, I now have all the parts needed to restore the suspension.  On an even more positive note, we now own a home and I have a garage!  The mighty resurrection will surely follow soon….

Back in early June, the trans started making a horribly loud whining noise all of the time.  Prior to that I was hearing more noise than usual, but what I was hearing then definitely signaled the end of the bearings.  I’m guessing that my rather heavy foot combined with copious amounts of boost caused a bit too much wheel spin, which tore up the spiders on the diff.  Since we were without a garage and about to purchase a home, I limped the car the 40 miles or so to my parent’s driveway to wait out the upcoming craziness in our lives.  Now that we are getting settled in our new home, it is time to deal with this thing.

I have the original A520 that came with the CSX.  It seems to have survived the two garage floods that occurred while it was in storage at my friends’ place.  I took it apart and cleaned/reoiled it both times, so it should be in good shape.  It does, however need a new #2 syncro and could also use new bearings.  The spiders on the diff look excellent.  I have placed an order for new bearings, snap rings, spacers, shifter fork pads, #2 stop ring, and the chrome-moly bearing retainer plate.  I want to get the plate because I know the other A520 was flexing pretty bad when the Shadow hit its torque peak (let out quite a howl in 3rd gear).  I am ordering the parts through Gary Donovan at Relentless Performance.