A friend of mine is helping me replace the engine in my '97 F-150, and while it's apart, we were considering fixing a long standing problem with the tranny. It has the 5 speed manual, and it suffers from the same tough shifting problem that a lot of these trucks have.

How hard is it to replace the 2nd gear synchro? The service guide doesn't go into much detail on the transmission. The guy that's helping me with this is a competent mechanic, but he's not really familiar with Ford transmissions.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Greg

 

Its not a bad job if you are used to working on standard transmissions. It will have to be totally dissambeled and a press would be nice but you can get by without it if you have a air hammer to help remove some of the light press fit bearings. The tricky part is during reassembley, the gears might bind or lock up up and it can really test your patience tring to figure out where the problem is. Unless you have some manual trans experience i would not attempt it, although this is the easiest 5 speed to work on. Btw it is a MAZDA transmission.You need a good book before you start this one.