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Monday, April 11, 2011

Your Transmission is coming in Leaky !?

So, this has been in the works for a while now, the dreaded AP2 transmission swap into an AP1. What a fiasco it was this past weekend. Of course I'm rushing to get my car ready for Wake The Dragon this weekend. So this past week, I had been keeping up with my terrible transmission leak that has been ailing me. I finally decided I was going to pull the trigger! I picked up an AP2 transmission for $600.00 a few months back now and it has been sitting in my garage. I took the plunge and managed to get my AP1 out in about 3 hours, it would have been quicker, but I ran into some issues having to cut some of my old propeller shaft (drive shaft) bolts out. Once it was all out, I took my time and put new fluid in the new transmission and did the required modifications to it. I changed the output flange from my AP1 because the AP2 flange uses a larger bolt, and took the time to regrease the shifter. Unbeknownst to me I forgot to tighten the fill plug, problems later arose. We battled with installing the new transmission after that on jack stands, finally managed to get the transmission back in, took it for a drive and sure as shit the new transmission was leaking. I couldn't believe it! It had been sitting there for months with not one drop. So I got to thinking, what could it be? It had to be something I had done to it. So today I went back to the garage, got back under the car and changed the drain plug and crush washer to a Spoon drain plug, put a socket on the fill plug and Shit!, it was loose! I once again filled the transmission back up and made sure to tighten the fill plug this time, cleaned it, and drove it no leak! This was a very dumb mistake on my part, however I am glad I discovered it now and was able to resolve the issue. I wont get into a long winded discussion over how to remove the transmission and what not, I'll give you the low down on what will need to be done if you're considering doing this swap. First you will want to source the AP2 transmission, then I recommend you buy the following from Honda,

New bolts for the Drive Shaft (Propeller Shaft) there is 6 in the front and 6 in the rear, most likely you will need to cut the heads off of these for removal, as the allen head tends to strip
Honda MTF the transmission holds a tad under 2 quarts but I always buy a few extra quarts to have on hand
New fill plug gasket
New drain plug gasket its the same as the oil drain plug
New out put flange gasket
New output shaft nut
Now you can either swap output flanges from the AP1 to the AP2 or buy an AP2 differential flange and AP2 drive shaft and the corresponding bolts since they are larger
Honda UREA grease You will want this for the shifter and clutch release fork as well as input shaft
Aside from this you might as well tackle the Clutch and Flywheel since your there, you will then need all the required parts and bearings
Also you will want to use a Modify Yellow Jacket speed calibrator, because your speedometer will be off due to the difference in gearing. You can use your handy GPS unit to calibrate your speed.

The rest of this madness is plug and play, the skill level is well you need some skills and patience and several extensions, as well as an impact. Its a pain in the ass, to be honest and I hate doing this job.

The advantages are carbon synchros, 1st - 4th gear has a closer ration gears, 5th is slightly closer and 6th is more over drive than the AP1, so I should see a slight increase in fuel mileage in 6th.  I am currently using a 4.77 Final Drive so I used this calculator to show my differences with the AP2 transmission vs AP1
http://www.turnzero.com/technical_resources.php?resource=gear_calculator

Here is the 4.77 with AP1 transmission

Here is the AP2 with the 4.77

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