Tranny/Drivetrain Guru Needed?

[Mike C]

Well something not good happened at NTR last night. I was making my second pass down and was just breaking the quarter mile. I had a good run going and went cleanly into 4th gear at around 900' or so. When I break the 1/4 mile I'm usually about 6000RPM into 4th and then I shift into 5th and start braking. The car went out of 4th gear but wouldn't go into 5th and was just stuck in neutral. I got it pulled over by the crew vehicles and sat there for about a minute trying to get it into any gear. Something felt like it was binded up because the shifter was just real hard to move around. It finally went into gear and I slowly started to pull away. I went about 20' at 5MPH and the car just locked up and something broke in the rear end. Now it was stuck in gear. The fine people at NTR just wanted to pull(drag) the whole car onto the flatbed with the wheels locked :bash After a few choice words to them, my friend and I rocked the car back and forth a little and it eventually broke back out of gear and into neutral. When the car is pushed there is a clunking sound from the rear. My guess is that I broke something there after I got the car moving again and it slammed to a stop and stuck. There probably is another problem in the tranny or shifing linkage that caused the problem to begin with. I'm going out of town now so I can't look at it until Monday. I really don't know alot about drivetrain stuff but I guess I will after all this. I was hoping someone knowledgeable might be able to give me hand if I get to a point of being stumped. I'll get into it a little next week and see what happens :cuss I'm a little upset but I've had it my head that something like this was bound to happen because I've had 0 problems so far. It least it got stuck in neutral and the rear end didn't lock up at 115MPH :D

[Gunner]

How did the launch on this particular run go? Any wheelhop or anything special? Rear ends just don't break for no particular reason. Either something happened to make the car RWD, and the LSD got fried and it locked up, or your t-case is fuxored and that locked up the rear end. If an axle broke off the line or something which you probably would have noticed unless you have a welded diff, or VCE in the car then the same thing would have happened. The rear end would have probably started to lock up.

As for not going into gear, first thing check the shifter cables and make sure those are still intact. After that, being that it effects every gear we're probably looking at some major damage there. A shift fork would only effect 2 gears. What is not out of the question is a clutch/flywheel problem. Those are just some things that came to mind. Sorry to hear about this Mike, keep us posted.

[Mike C]

Well a few small updates. I looked at it quickly last night for the first time. The car will start but as soon as I let the clutch out it dies. I think that means its stuck in 2 gears. The next thing I'm going to do is pull the transfer case and driveshaft and see if the rear wheels spin freely so I can rule out any rear end damage. I don't think this can hurt the viscous since the center diff is welded. If thats hopefully OK, then I'll probably pull the tranny and decide if I should push to get it repaired this year or just pull the whole 7 bolt and start the swap project. I heard that NTR may be closing in Sept anyway because they are resurfacing the track. Has anyone heard if this is true because it would definately help my decision.

[EvolvedDSM]

NTR will be down for a couple of weeks is what I've heard. They will reopen before season's end.

[Mike C]

Well with that said, I'm going to probably just chalk up the season and pull the whole motor and get started for next year. The tranny definately has issues and I don't think I'd get it back from Shepherd or whoever I choose in time to make it worthwhile anyway. I wish I could have said I hit the 11 on the 2g motor but oh well. Maybe Jeff can do it with his Green so someone here can represent the 7 bolt.