1994 3500 6 Speed ZR6

[bonecrrusher]

Monthly oil change?

How many miles do you drive?

FYI - next time I would rip off the UPS label before I go posting pictures w/ my address on it....

[SummitBalt08]

Monthly oil change?

How many miles do you drive?

FYI - next time I would rip off the UPS label before I go posting pictures w/ my address on it....

Good call on the UPS label. Been running around too much and didn't even think about that lol.

I drive a lot for work. Sometimes 100 miles a night. Then all the running around I do outside of work. I try to drive the Montana I bought for my Fiance outside of work to keep the miles off the Malibu... but that doesnt always happen haha



Sent from my EVO LTE using Tapatalk 2

[Rettax3]

Sooo, you have a blown-out Quad and a five-speed without a home, right? If I put my 3.4 DOHC into the Yellow Indy instead of my '95 Z-26 as originally planned, I'll be looking for something to replace the 3100 with the 3400 intake in my '95 Z-26 (which was no where NEAR as nice as your car was to begin with, BTW. Nice looking '94, and a great JY find). A Quad sounds like something different for me to go with... It is a little ironic to me that while I'm thinking of going Quad on my Z-26, other Z owners are going away from the Quads...

[SummitBalt08]

Sooo, you have a blown-out Quad and a five-speed without a home, right? If I put my 3.4 DOHC into the Yellow Indy instead of my '95 Z-26 as originally planned, I'll be looking for something to replace the 3100 with the 3400 intake in my '95 Z-26 (which was no where NEAR as nice as your car was to begin with, BTW. Nice looking '94, and a great JY find). A Quad sounds like something different for me to go with... It is a little ironic to me that while I'm thinking of going Quad on my Z-26, other Z owners are going away from the Quads...

If you want any Quad stuff shoot me a PM. Yes on your question. Thanks for the compliment of my Z!

Updates next post!

[SummitBalt08]

Progress!!!!!

I will post the good news then the bad news...

Junk dash/obd1.5 dash harness out!!


Auto headlight sensor in!






Tyler powered! lol


James getting the mint dash/obd2 dash harness in.


New steering rack, painted heater box, and OB2 V6 harness in!

[SummitBalt08]

Spec clutch brand new flywheel put on about to drop the motor in.


Brackets painted and installed


Motor going in

[SummitBalt08]

First time having a mint dash in my Z!




Thats all the good news.

Bad news is we put the 92 V6 trans in and the shifter would only go shift into 3-4. It would not go side to side to shift into 1-2 or 5-R.

After doing everything we could to try and fix it, its basically got a bent fork or its all jammed up inside. Hopefully Tyler will post with more details.

As of now not sure what I am going to do. I dont have the extra money for another trans a the moment, so this will probably be at a standstill for a bit. I am still going to post updates as I get the upper intake done and get the throttle body and all that on.

[woody90gtz]

Try shifting it via the levers on the trans and not the shifter inside the car. I have a link in my build thread with a ton of 5spd rebuild pics.

[Quad4Z26]

Was about to say the same. That's how I ruled out trans trouble.

Same thing happened to me for whatever reason the inside shifter wouldnt go side to side. Shifted trans using the levers all seemed to work fine. Reinstalled cables and all worked ok.... not sure what it could've been. (I think I had cables switched)

Swap looking good!! Keep it up!

[SummitBalt08]

We tried shifting it with the levers. Its froze up bad and we tried everything to get it to work. Nice and smooth on the Quad trans lol. Syncro on first was going out in the Quad trans so even that option isnt open. Sucks Sucks Sucks! Was making damn good progress

[Rettax3]

That seriously bites. When I first replaced the transmission on my '90 "T-Type" Turbo 'Retta several years ago, everything seemed to go fine. The original Muncie had toasted itself when I let it run too low on oil, and the replacement was a stroke-of-luck junkyard find from an '88 or '89 GT for ~$80, with extras attached (I had been unable to find a spare Muncie for a number of years). But then I pulled the car out of the driveway... I had just put the original LG5 turbo 3.1 back in the car after an abortive use of the same 3.4 hybrid that is successfully in the car now (with alot more mods than it had back then), so I was already tired of working on this thing. First to second, second to.. Oh! No third. Or fourth. I had fifth and reverse though (for a while -those disappeared too, before I was able to pull the junk back out and complete the transplant of the Cavvy-sourced Muncie (VSS compatibility problems with that, BTW, avoid the older Cavvy or Fiero ones and save yourself a headache) and re-cranked 3.4 SFI Turbo engine that the car has now.

Honestly, if you were closer so that I could snag all of your unwanted Quad stuff, I would help fund your new replacement tranny -it sucks that so many of this board's members are so far back East, while I'm not. Or I could possibly even work a trade for a good V-6 tranny, if you didn't mind one of the older external-slave types, but with freight charges, it wouldn't even be close to worth it for either one of us...

Keep trying, you will get this where you want it sooner or later!

[woody90gtz]

Well, you could send it to Midwest Transmission like I ended up doing with mine. You'll be about $400-500 total for a complete rebuild. The other option is to crack it open yourself and have a look...it could be something simple.

http://www.motortopia.com/cars/1991-che ... uild-32579

Here's a pic of the forks where the shift shaft goes.




I've got a bunch of spare parts if you do need something.

[SummitBalt08]

Awesome on the info!

I am thinking about a couple different things. Now that you mention it, maybe splitting the case to see if there is something noticeably wrong is probably a good idea. What do I have to lose?

Another is I know where a 284 is. Whether its any good or not? Not sure thats a chance I want to take yet. From the reading I have done the 284s handle higher RPM shifting alot better than the 282s.

The other is buying the 88 GT trans I got the jackshaft for this swap from.

Then again, that trans is 20+ years old. Finding another 92-93 3.1 5 speed Beretta trans is bad enough. There is another 92-93 trans in Indiana but what if that one has the same problem the one I just bought has?

I might actually wait a bit and send this one off to get rebuilt if I dont try to look at it.

I dont know. I have been running non stop to get stuff done for this car. After I pick up the 3500 upper intake tomorrow I am going to take a week break.

[SummitBalt08]

I am definitely taking my time to consider what I am going to do. After getting burned by the Quad a few times losing money there, now losing money with the trans.. I dont know.

[Rettax3]

Awesome on the info!
I am thinking about a couple different things. Now that you mention it, maybe splitting the case to see if there is something noticeably wrong is probably a good idea. What do I have to lose?
Another is I know where a 284 is. Whether its any good or not? Not sure thats a chance I want to take yet. From the reading I have done the 284s handle higher RPM shifting alot better than the 282s.
The other is buying the 88 GT trans I got the jackshaft for this swap from.
Then again, that trans is 20+ years old. Finding another 92-93 3.1 5 speed Beretta trans is bad enough. There is another 92-93 trans in Indiana but what if that one has the same problem the one I just bought has?
I might actually wait a bit and send this one off to get rebuilt if I dont try to look at it.
I dont know. I have been running non stop to get stuff done for this car. After I pick up the 3500 upper intake tomorrow I am going to take a week break.

I have a 284... Think hard on that one before investing. The clutch for that thing costs ~$300, because they are so rare (they use a pull-type diaphragm, like the T-56 six-speeds in the fourth-gen F-bodies and the like). Output shafts (for the CVs) are different, so you would be looking at custom work there. You cannot just use the W-body shafts that came with it, because those cars are too wide and the hub bearings use much larger splined shafts, and the only other vehicle to be equipped with a 284 was the Chrysler TC -I don't have a clue whether or not those CVs would help you on a Beretta project. It is a great transmission, very capable of handling the power you have there, but a 282 will probably take it too. And if that 284 ever needs rebuilding (mine is a rebuilt unit), you are looking at $1500+ because of the special presses required to service it. I picked mine up for ~$90, including a newish clutch, hydraulics, and CVs. I doubt I'll ever try to put it into an L-body -maybe my Fiero GT will get it instead of a 282, but that car is wider like the W-body cars, so I just have hub-spline differences to deal with... On the plus side, it doesn't weigh much more than a 282, it is virtually the same physical size, and they are just plain cool because they are so rare. They do handle much greater torque input (I don't know about the high RPM shifting, but that would make a lot of sense considering the substantially higher redline found on the 3.4 DOHC engine mated to that trans), and you have one available to you...
It would bolt in just fine to a Grand Prix TGP though...
I am with Woody here -if you can take the time, crack open your case and see what you've got. Otherwise, I would chase-down that older 282 you mentioned. In the grand scheme we are talking, the few years difference in age doesn't matter much, and I have a number of 282s that old that shift fine (I also have three here that don't, so... ) The main thing you want to test is the slop in the differential -plug in the intermediate shaft you have on one side, and a CV or CV 'tulip' into the other. Then wiggle the intermediate shaft up and down and forward/backward -if the tulip or CV on the other side wiggles too, then the carriers for the diff are worn. You can also make sure it shifts positively into all six gear positions (Reverse too) and rotate the input shaft in each gear to make sure the differential is turning too, as I have seen more of them fail with the shift linkage and forks than the supposedly main failure of the diff carrier. You can't really test the synchros on a static test though. That is the only problem I have with the 282 I pulled out of my GTU earlier this year, and a reluctance to enter Reverse.

Here is a parts schematic and list for the 282 -it might help show how it all goes together, and if you do find something bad in that trans you could use the list to help get the right part from Woody. I hate to say it, but now might be a good time to consider an LSD upgrade too...

MG 282 Parts Schem&List1a.docx

Parts Schematic and List -Four Pages

(984.71 KiB) Downloaded 220 times

I also have these pics relating to disassembling the tranny, if they help... Not sure if I have any of the relevant text though...

Good luck, keep us posted!