The T56 in my Camaro is popping out of reverse. I'm pretty mechanically inclined, would it be possible for me to fix this myself?

 

ive heard from ppl that its a clutch promlem, but then again, i could be wrong..

cory

 

You know, the guy that I bought the car from said it was due to air in the clutch line and it needed to be bled, but that didn't sound possible to me. Is it a possibility?

 

thats what i heard it was... not sure if true... board reading can easily be wrong...

cory

 

does the reverse gear have a synchro? heh...i dont know much about trannys...sorry if this sounds stupid

 

i think most reverse gears do not have a synchro but i have never had a t56 apart. i had the same problem . i changed the tranny. didnt touch the clutch line or bleed it so this leads me to believe it is in the tranny. my theory and my dads is that the teeth on the reverse gear get the edges of them chipped of when it pops out due to people not getting it all the way engaged or hitting reverse going to 5th gear . and it lacks enough teeth to hold it in place . i really dont think that it is a clutch problem . but that is just my opinion.

 

If it is just reverse it's probably the trans. and not the clutch. Look for worn or bent parts.

 

wierd... mine just started to do that this past week... ill go to back out of a spot and it'll pop out.

 

So nobody knows how difficult this is to fix? anyone ever been inside a T56?

 

I started taking mine apart a couple months ago back at home. The 5th, 6th, reverse, and reverse idler gears are in the tailhousing (and you'll notice that there's a wall that separates the 1-4 gears from the back of the trans where everything else is, so you'll need a gear puller and snapring remover tool to take the 5/6/reverse gears off the shaft to access the front gears). You stand the trans on the bellhousing and remove the 7 or so bolts that hold the tailhousing on and GENTLT pull it straight up. Make sure you keep the two longer bolts organised since they'll only go back into the holes they came from. The housing will come off fairly easy by tilting and twisting it as you pull it. There's two shafts back there and the lower one rides in a tapered bearing in the tailhousing. You can see the syncros for the 5/6 gears and reverse. Mine has always been a little tough to get into reverse and i saw that one of the little pads on the reverse syncro was missing, which may be the problem. As far as popping out, i'm not sure. But my manual says it could be a bad syncro or blocker ring on it. Might just have to take a look. When you put the tailhousing back on you have to maneuver it around a little bit to get things back straight (it's a little tricky). But don't force it back on, it should fall into place when things are lined up.

I'll be able to tell you a little more when i get to digging into it a little more later on. HTHs

 

Is it really as easy as that sounds?

 

Fast Caddie?

 

Sorry for the delay...It's really not hard to get at those parts in the rear section of the trans. I didn't pull any of the internals out at the time, i had to get the thing back together before coming back to school. But you can plainly see all the 5/6/reverse parts once the tailhousing off (lay it flat and drain all the fluid out first, obviously). There are also two donut magnets in the bottom of the tailhousing, take a look at those to see if there are any large chunks of metal.

If you go to tremec's website you can download a free service manual in pdf format for a lot more info. HTHs

 

I pulled mine apart last year with a friend who knew what he was doing. When we finished I realized that it's not something that I can't do. Manuals are great to have around also. You can also do a few upgrades while you're in the as well. Take a look at D&D's site for the parts.

Here's a T56 manual in .pdf format - Click

 

Awesome thanks for the info and links guys