I blew the tranny in my ranger. Its a 97 and only has 23 300 miles.. what gives???

we don't have the best tranny's in our rangers, they are mazda made, and nothing against mazda, but these tranies suck. I hear of some peole I who have them last 200K then some blow up the first time you dump the clutch. You can try a rebuild, but it would probably be cheaper to get a new teansmission, wait till rascal king gets on he will have more options than I can give.

Best thing to do is start hitting the yards. Find you a low mileage tranny from a 96 and up. Expect to pay about $750 to $1500 for a used mazda tranny for our trucks. At this point it may be worth converting over to the T-5 tranny.

That envolves getting the T-5 tranny off any mustang available and a bell housing that was made for the hydrolic clutch, then you would have to cut a new hole in your truck because the shifter gets pushed back about what...5 to 7 inches or so... you can get a cup holder out of an automatic transmission ranger to cover the old hole. But then doing so you would have to get rid of your split bench seats because the shifter would be in the way of the middle seat.... A whole lot of b.s. but sorry to hear about your loss....personally mine has about 120k on it and though it could use a little fixing, it's still going.

Originally posted by EatnS10s
Best thing to do is start hitting the yards. Find you a low mileage tranny from a 96 and up. Expect to pay about $750 to $1500 for a used mazda tranny for our trucks. At this point it may be worth converting over to the T-5 tranny.

That envolves getting the T-5 tranny off any mustang available and a bell housing that was made for the hydrolic clutch, then you would have to cut a new hole in your truck because the shifter gets pushed back about what...5 to 7 inches or so... you can get a cup holder out of an automatic transmission ranger to cover the old hole. But then doing so you would have to get rid of your split bench seats because the shifter would be in the way of the middle seat.... A whole lot of b.s. but sorry to hear about your loss....personally mine has about 120k on it and though it could use a little fixing, it's still going.

No T-5 came with a hydrolic clutch, they are all cable. I'll post a pic of where the shifter comes threw the floorboard.

Some T-5's came with hydro clutch. 87-88 Turbo coupes came with the hydro clutch. You need a bell from one of them. I did the swap from 2.9 auto to 2.3 turbo stick. I had to shorten the drive shaft an inch because of the x-cab two piece and I had to make an adapter for the cross member. Besides that it was just a bunch of swaping parts. But now my T-5 is dead and I'm going to auto and having a HUGE problem. Please read my post on the gen disc borad.

They've just about covered it...One of these days I'll get around to trying the R2 transmission out of a SuperCoupe. (The Ranger uses the M5ROD-R1, the SC and the F150 use the M5ROD-R2)

unfortunately, most trannies, even mustang stock trannies are all light duty in cases to match. seriously in oreder to get a real tranny it will cost lots and lots of money. i know i knopw the world calss here and i know a guy here, really a built c-4 or a jerico is the way to go, but they are not affordable at all.. oh well, i say use the stock tranny, dont get to sticky of tires and never hook hard, tire spin saves rears and trannies alike.

What breaks driveline parts is shock loads. Dropping the clutch is hard on the transmission, as are burnouts...I won't argue with anyone about the A4LD automatic being less than stout, but I've seen the M5ROD-R1 manuals last behind some real punishment.

What kills driveline parts is lack of maintenance...how many people do you know who change their transmission, power steering, and brake fluids? Not to mention rear end lube...I know I don't. I'm real good at changing oil, but I rarely even check the other fluids...