[wightrob]

i swaped my aod for a t5 and my 3rd and 4th gear is grinding a little when i shift 3rd is ok if i shift around 30 mph but anyhigher it grinds for a moment i know the clutch cable was used and i think i need a new cable i was thinking of putting washers between the trany and the bell houseing to see if it is the cable

any input or ideas would be great i got the t5 from the same year car as mine 1992 2.3 thanks

p.s. the starter has now started makeing a grinding noise to since the swap

[74stang2togo]

The grinding when shifting to 3rd and/or 4th is the most common Mustang 5-spd malady, the syncronizers (synchros for short) on those two gears are extremely prone to wear, and once they start to go out they get noisy and make shifting difficult. It's something you can drive the car with, but beware that the longer you do so the worse it will get and that eventually you'll start damaging other parts of the transmission because the worn bits are still in your fluid sloshing around with your working parts... Unfortunately the only way to fix it is to take the transmission down and open it up to replace the worn/broken parts (something I'd recommend leaving to a good transmission shop if you've never worked on a transmission before, it's delicate work that needs to be done in the cleanest of environments.)

As far as the starter grinding, did you use the thin steel plate that goes between the block and the bellhousing? If that's missing, your starter, along with everything else, are going to be out-of-alignment by about 1/16 of an inch, more than enough to cause noise/aggravation/damage. If yours was missing or you didn't put it in there, you'll need to get one (they should be a dime a dozen at the junkyard, even the one from an automatic car should fit, that's what I've got between my 2.3 and it's 4-spd just because the original from my car was rusty) and that should solve the starter problem.

If you did use that plate, then check your flywheel's ring gear teeth to make sure none are broken, cracked, rounded-off, knife-edged, or chipped. Any of those are indicators that your flywheel's ring gear is worn/damaged or that the teeth of the starter are worn/damaged.

[wightrob]

i have the shim in place and was reading that there are more teath on the automatic flywheel then the manual flywheel could this be a problem i ew flywheel but was just wondering this

[74stang2togo]

The same starter is listed for both manual and automatic @ Advanceautoparts.com but it's been known to be wrong from time-to-time, I'd check the teeth on both the starter and ring gear first, then see if there's not another issue somewhere, the starter could just be weak, the only symptom my Thunderbird would give before it's starter would give up would be some grinding sounds for the last two or thee days before it'd just quit engaging the bendix (The part that kicks out the gear in the nose of the starter.).