Gearsets interchangeable between similar transmissions?

udubrx7

Well.... my wagon tranny broke right under the rear motor mount, and its definitely un-repairable. So, I have to buy a new transmission, but I really don't want to lose these great gears! Does anybody know which transmissions will fit on my 1990 2wd 5spd civic wagon (I'm assuming I won't be able to find a wagon tranny to put in,) and would I be able to swap in my wagon gears??

thanks in advance

Tom

Jaker

2WD wagon has the same transmission as most of the other FWD 89-91 Civics (88 has a different spline count on the clutch input shaft). You could use a tranny from the 89-91 Si hatch or CRX which would have the same or better gearing than the wagon. Your options are pretty much limitless. You could even take the guts from your current broken tranny (assuming all that is broken is the case) and swap them into another case, and retain the gearing that you like some much.

udubrx7

awesome thats what I was hoping for! How hard is it to find an si or crx tranny and where should I look? I don't have a lot of $$, so maybe I should just swap the gearset into a cheaper tranny... Mine is a cable clutch, so I guess I need to make sure to get the same, but I would assume I could swap to cable shifting if I had to?

Thanks for the help!

Tom

Jaker

Your transmission is a cable clutch, the same as all the other 88-91 Civics. Your transmission is also shifted with solid shifter rods, the same again as all the FWD 88-91 Civics. The 4WD wagon is the only one from 88-91 in north america that uses cables for shifting. If you get a transmission from an 89-91 Civic (remember the 88 has a different input shaft, and your clutch disc won't fit), your will have no trouble fitting it to your car.

There are many places to find transmissions:

-Classifieds here
-Honda-Tech classifieds
-Local auto wrecker
-Craigslist

etc...

udubrx7

Thank you!

udubrx7

Well I ended up getting a 91 crx si tranny off of ebay for $120 shipped to my door in 3 days...... pure luck if you ask me.

But now I have a few more questions....

The Si transmission I got needs to be rebuilt (just the bearings, not even the seals), so to save time and money (I'm a part time student/delivery driver) I decided to just try and swap my wagon gearset into the si case.

I realized that the differentials and input shaft bearings cant be swapped between the cases because of the larger bearings on the Si, but can the wagon input shaft be swapped into the larger case with the larger bearings? The inside diameter of the bearings appear to be the same.

Since I will still be using the Si diff and final drive now, but with the wagon gears, wont my gear ratios end up being even shorter than the stock si gears with the si final drive? Sort of like people swapping in ZC gears with the si final drive, but not quite so short? I tried to find the specs of the wagon transmission online but all I could come up with is the final drive spec of 4.25 and then all of the regular numbers for the EX and DX and HF and Si.

Thanks!

Tom

udubrx7

Also....

If it is ok for me to put the wagon gears into the si clutch housing with the si differential and input shaft bearing, whats to stop me from just putting the larger si bearing on the end of the wagon main shaft ?

I was planning on buying a new si main shaft end bearing and the two small counter shaft end bearings eventually and just putting the whole si tranny back together like stock. BUT, my wagon gears have got brand new counter shaft end bearings. So I was hoping I could just get away with only buying a new Si input shaft bearing and Si main shaft end bearing to fit with the stock wagon main shaft. The Si differential bearings seem to be in OK shape, and they are the most expensive, so I was just going to leave them.... bad idea?

Anybody see any problem with any of this?

If we can get this figured out, it might be worth a sticky; ive spent a hell of a long time trying to pool this info together from around the web.


thanks again!

Tom


EDIT: I was wrong, the transaxle housings ARE different. So it looks like to run an Si clutch housing and transaxle case with ANY other L3 gears you at least need to have: an Si input shaft bearing, an Si input shaft/main shaft end bearing, and an si differential. I'm also guessing that you could use the wagon main shaft end bearing along with the wagon transaxle case, but the si main input shaft bearing to mate it up to the si clutch housing if you wanted to. I guess this all rides on:

Are the si main shaft bearings swappable onto the wagon main shaft? They appear to be..... but I cannot be positive.

SiWagon

Wagon final ratio= 4.058 @ following link:
http://www.hondacivicwagon.com/board/vi ... .php?t=103

udubrx7

yes I already found that when I searched, but I'm trying to find out the numbers for the gear ratios not the final drive ratio, thanks though

SiWagon

DX,Si&Wgn(2wd) 1-5th gear are the same ratios.