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Broken transmission crossmember

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Car is in the dealer for a grind going into reverse. Dealer claims that the car bottomed out and broke the cross member near the bolt on the right. I'm skeptical of this and will go in tomorrow to take a look at it. They want me to purchase a new cross member.

What are my options? The car does not like to shift at high rpm at the track.

Would a CHE cross member eliminate the stock parts?

20140610951430521_zps5b478f78.jpg
 

pufferfish

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66
Maryland
Pic is hard to tell, but I do see the crack around the trans isolator nut on the crossmember. It needs to be replaced either way, but unless there is scrape damage I can't see in the pic from bottoming it out, I don't buy their diagnosis of the failure.

Grinding reverse is not likely to be fixed by replacing the crossmember and the CHE brace thingy is just another crutch for a flawed shifter system....and will introduce a TON of unwanted NVH!
 
Grinding reverse happend out of the blue, the trans has always shifted horribly. I'm also highly skeptical of their diagnosis, I have a feeling the tech isnt very experienced with S197 mustangs.

I wasnt sure if there was an upgrade to the OEM transmission cross member. What would you replace it with, I can live with some NVH.
 

pufferfish

Supporting Vendor
1,094
66
Maryland
Factory crossmember is just fine. Just replace it with another OE part.

To fix your shitty shifter quality, there are any number of aftermarket shifters. Get one with a dual fulcrum (such as MGW) to keep the gate spacing close to stock. The factory gates are super-narrow and it gets worse with single fulcrum short shifters.

That will improve your shifter feel, but the repeatable accuracy is something no company has addressed properly. I will have something by the end of the summer. Testing has proven to make shifting as reliable as anyone could ever ask for. ...without causing bone rattling NVH.
 
High durometer urethane motor mounts helped me as well. Essentially approaching transmission flex from the other end.

Sent from my DROID4 using Tapatalk
 
I either hit something or ran over something that shot up and hit the bolt / cross member.

If you look to the bottom right of the bolt about 1" away you see a lighter spot on the crossmember. There is a scrape there and the bolt has some of the top missing. It was obvious that the damage was old, none of the breaks/scrape was new.


They found that the reverse synchro was worn and basically not working. ( not pictured)

Second gear was not grinding but the synchro was missing teeth. The tech told me he ordered reverse, 1st, and 2nd gear. I'm not sure if its just the synchros or the gears as well but the gears looked fine.
20140611_145602_zpsdpf3uqxi.jpg

Everything is being covered except for that cross member at $193.
 

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