My new whip.. :)

[Mazda_Powered]

were the fronts non adjustable? I'm curious to see what the inserts were as well lol. I'm guessing Koni or Bilstein

[FE3-323]

i bet it was horribly mismatched spring rates. the inserts were bilstein®
i just about **** myself in excitement when i saw that. im still trying to hunt down a place to source them. that & figure out the valving rate

[Mazda_Powered]

isn't this the 2nd time you've had your hands on Bilstein inserts Ryan? I remember those el sports or w/e the hell they were lol.

[crazycanadian]

Ryan thats good news if they were Bilsteins... Looks like you can get them rebuilt and revalved.. That shouldn't cost an arm and a leg either.. Do you have any pictures? I'd be curious to see them all a part..

On a side note I have been making slow progress but some non the less.. I have had a good look over the gear sets/syncros and such.. Even though I have a complete bearing/seal and syncro kit here for rebuilding the transmission I have decided I am only going to put new bearings and seals in... The escort transmission case was way to clean on the inside and the sycro rings look almost brand new.. I have a feeling it was rebuilt recently.. I am just going to slap some new bearings on the escort stuff and new seals in the mx3 transmission and assemble it all..

If you are curious on how to pull the bearing racing out of the bell housing side of the transmission, here is how I do it..




Both axle races, and the back side case half you can just use a punch and a hammer to knock the races out.. Be very careful when hammering out the races on the back side case half.. This is where all your pre-load shims are... you don't want to ruin any of them since you'll most likely end up reusing them when setting your bearing pre-loads before final assembly...

Most of the time G-series bearing races are pretty loose in the case though.. I have had 9 or 10 of them apart now.... Every one of them the bearing races could spin in place if you tried to move them.. Majority of the races either fell out/or I could pull out by hand so long as they came out dead straight... On the odd occasion flipping the case upside down and tapping it with a rubber malet or wodden block was enough to get the races to vibrate loose and fall out...

[FE3-323]

slide hammer goodness!!!
i'll take pictures of the bilstein's next week. i'll be calling up the california location to get some more input from them.

[Mazda_Powered]

Bilstein's have a pt#?

So how goes the KLG4 harness conversion? You're undertaking something I've always wanted to do, as I loath how Mazda setup the KL's engine management lol. Are you keeping track of what's been done for future reference? I'd like to read it if so!

[crazycanadian]

Bilstein's have a pt#?

So how goes the KLG4 harness conversion? You're undertaking something I've always wanted to do, as I loath how Mazda setup the KL's engine management lol. Are you keeping track of what's been done for future reference? I'd like to read it if so!

When I do the harness conversion I'll have lots of pictures and everything... I am still working on the transmission right now... This weekend I had hoped to get it back together but I wasn't able to work on it...I had my son over this weekend and couldn't have him help me while I was cleaning everything in the solvent tank... So I enlisted his help to do some maintenance work on my gf's Protege5...

Here is my son helping me change out plugs on the P5..


+

Tonight I got the transmission all cleaned up but when I was getting ready to install all the new bearings the ski opened up in a massive thunder storm.. Since I am doing most of my work outside I had to call it quits early..

[tireboy]

good luck with the new project .. yeah the sky opened up and getting a nice light show ..

[Mazda_Powered]

your son is adorable! he looks like a master tech at work haha.

Glad the transmissions going good though

[crazycanadian]

Picking away at the transmission slowly.. I thought I could get it all back together tonight but I ran into a small snag.. The bolts that hold the ring gear in place are to long.. It was to late for me to be out side grinding them off so I had to call it quits for tonight.. Its a simple fix and then the transmission will be finished...

Setting up end play and bearing preload...


My collection of shims from all the G-series transmission I have torn down...


Measuring up shims... My case halfs didn't look worn, but it took almost 0.040 thou to get my preload and end play set on both my input and counter shaft.. It seams like a lot, the largest shim I have seen is 0.022 thou in all the transmissions I have torn down.. It could be the aftermarket bearings, or possibly the fact I am using the complete escort shaft/gear sets in my mx3 case...


Getting evering together for a dry run.. This is where I ran into troubles.. I had a feeling the bolts would need to be ground down..

[FE3-323]

tomorrow is another day! post up more pictures of the progress. & props for taking such time to set the preload - few actually take the time to do that.

[crazycanadian]

I am going on vacation next week.. I am leaving this friday, so this is as far as things will get untill I return.. On the 18/19th I should be able to get lots done though.. Hopefully I'll have the motor in by the end of that weekend and I'll be able to work on all the wiring fun then..

Thanks for the compliments..

[Mazda_Powered]

Awesome! Progress! shame about the clearance issues though, but who knows may have happened for a reason lol.

Have fun on your vacation though! Where are you going? Staying in Canadaland?

[crazycanadian]

Well I am back from vacation.. I didn't get as much done as I wanted to though.. I have been struggling with a bad cold all week, so I took this weekend to relax a bit and just pick at things slowly..

There was a question on another bored about why I measure end play, when you don't want any... I figured I would post up my response over here as well for anyone who is curious about what all I was doing when rebuilding the transmission...

I install everything one piece at a time... for example I'll install only the input shaft with the new bearings and races.. I will install it by its self with no shims installed behind the race. I bolt the cases together with 4 or 5 bolts and then I measure the end play.. This gives me the minimum thickness of shim I need to take up and get rid of all the end play... I'll usually add about 5 - 6 thou to what I measured.. This should put a little preload on the bearings..

With the size of shim measured out that I needed I went to my collection and got as close as I could.. I pull the input shaft out and the bearing race out of the back half of the case halfs(closest to 5th gear this is the side that all your shims go in)... Then I install the shim, put the race back in and reinstall the shaft and remeasure everything, making sure I have no end play..

Then I take a dial gauge inch pound torque stick and measure the preload... There is a proper spec for the preload, but I fudged it a little and went with what my experience and gut told me would work ok.. The biggest worry is having no end play, and you need some preload with new bearings because as they break in they will loosen up a little...

I repeat the process until I have all the specs set for the input shaft/counter shaft and diff... This is why you would pay so much to have your transmission rebuilt at a shop... It takes a couple hours to set things up properly... Actually tearing down, and assembling the transmission only takes me about half an hour to do...

[crazycanadian]

Some of my updates... I got into tearing the motor down a bit so that I could install new valve cover gaskets/intake manfold gaskets/ cam/crank and rear main seals.. I also transferred my timing belt from my old motor over to the new motor.. The timing belt off my old motor was only a couple years old so it should be could for a few more years... Since the motor isn't a interference motor I am not worried about breaking the belt...

Some interesting finds as I tore into things.. I thought KLG4's were supposed to have different shaped intake ports then KLDE's... My KLG4 has the same shape as my old DE.. There is no mistaking my motor is a KLG4, its stamped all over the place.. TB/Valve covers/ Cams are all stamped KLG4...
KLDE intake manifold on the left/KLG4 on the right..


Top view of the 2 manifolds side by side.. From the looks of things the KLG4 has larger plennum volume, they have also changed the intake runners designs and legths a little as well.. The throttle body on the KLDE is angled, where as the KLG4 is straight much like a straight neck ZE


The throttle bodies are completely different, all though thankfully the linkages on the outside are the same... The KLG4 uses a nonadjustable 3 wire TPS.. The KLDE uses a 4 wire adjustable TPS. The KLG4 has no coolant control idle valve, where as the KLDE doe. The throttle body bores are the same size though, and so is the bolt patterns...

KLG4


KLDE


My busted up throttle linkage, I never saw this before when I bought the motor. Not to sure when it happened.Thankfully it wasn't hard to fix, my old DE linkage swapped over. It took a couple hours because nothing wanted to come apart easy though..


DE/G4 linkages off the throttle body..


My KLG4 could be converted to run a distributor if I wanted to.. The camshaft in the front head is still slotted for the distributor drive...


I ran into a problem test fitting my rear header and egr set up. The tube between the EGR and header didn't fit. The fittings were different and so was the routing..Since the computer shuts off the egr valve under heavy/WOT loads I see no point to deleting the EGR so I cut and welded a section of my old EGR tube to the new egr tube to make it all work..


Clutch alignment tool anyone?? Took a little bit to dig threw my collection to find the right one.. I never realized how many of them I have collected over the years, so I decided to count them all. 68 in total in that pile. I have a lot more at work.. These are all duplicates that I cleaned out of my tool box at work last year and brought home. Every one of them represents a clutch job I have done at some point in my career. I estimate I have done about 150 or so clutch jobs in the last 11 years..


I got the clutch/flywheel all bolted up and the transmission bolted together.. For anyone who has ever had their transmission out, save your self a head ache down the road. Put a little never seize on the dowl pins to keep them from corroding and seizing down the road.

Transmission meet engine. Engine meet transmission, you guys are now happily married. Hopefully there wont be any divorcing anytime soon.


This is how I left everything at the end of the night.. Its about 90% ready to be installed.. I noticed the throttle body was pretty dirty so I figured I would take it to work and clean it all up tomorrow, after that it should be pretty much ready to go..