T5 Transmission Reconditioning

By Frank Colgoni

Other than I had established that our Borg Warner T5 came from a 1986 RWD Blazer, I knew nothing about what evil lurked within. To remedy that, and to establish some piece of mind, the T5 was treated to a full reconditioning at Lawrence Transmission in Rexdale, Ontario. They've been doing this since the 60's. Learn more about them HERE.

To reaquaint you with our T5, here's an excerpt from a previous update:

"...we mentioned on our project homepage that we would be using a T5 transmission. Specifically, the preferred type for the Volvo PV544 application (forward shifter placement rather than at the rear of the tailshaft) would be a T5 out of an 80's S truck or rear wheel drive Blazer. After a fairly exhaustive search (and a lot of dead ends and other dubious claims), I found one that was still in a Blazer attached to a 60 deg. V6 (our block) so I knew this was going to be the right one. The Borg Warner sticker, if present on the case top, would confirm exact details.

When I got to the location of the donor Blazer, the owner had removed the engine/transmission as a unit. We then proceeded to split the T5 and bellhousing from the engine. This is how it looked when I got it home. "

More from the previous article:

"...after a fair bit of scraping, etc. The debris on the newspaper is mostly oily sand. The red arrow points to the Borg Warner ID sticker which identifies the T5 as a 13-52-145. Crossing this against the T5 reference chart yielded a 1986 S-truck application with gear ratios of 3.76, 2.18, 1.42, 1.00, .72. That made sense given what it was removed from."

Below: Essentially this is what I delivered to Lawrence Transmission for reconditioning.

Below: They were good enough to let me know when the T5 was completely apart so I could have a look at the parts and take some photos. This is the main case and tailshaft housing after blasting.

Below: Another view

Below: Top cover after blasting. Note the heavy pitting in a few areas. This was likely caused by salt and other crud that sat up there for years in the Blazer.

Below: The balance of the original parts nicely laid out. Pinder, of Lawrence Transmission, was good enough to explain what everything was and how it functioned.

Below: For reference, here is an exploded view of a non-WC T5. The only difference from this and ours is the location of the shifter. That is, ours is at the front of the tailshaft housing.

Below: Front bearing retainer has been cleaned up, dressed and painted.

Below: The only gear wear was on the reverse gear. This is apparently typical. The arrows point to some "rounding" of the gear teeth. This is due to engaging reverse without the transmission being at rest. Rule of thumb: After stopping, shift into a forward gear (like 1st. or 5th.) then engage reverse. They were going to clean these up before assembly.

Below: Original brass blocking rings showed wear (red arrow). Also, wear on the shifter fork pads (yellow arrow).

Below: Other than that, the major bits and pieces were, thankfully, all good to go.

Below: One half of the reconditioning parts kit.

Below: The other half of the reconditioning kit. At right is our short shift replacement base.

Below: Here's our T5 back together and ready for installation. Also for reference, Chris at Lawrence Transmission recommends ONLY Dextron II ATF (or it's later equivalents) for T5's.