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| The installation started out on a sour note. Removing the sheet metal cover over 5th gear wasn't as easy as I remembered (I last removed it about six years ago). There didn't seem to be enough room to get the cover off! Finally I remembered to use a big crowbar to move the whole powertrain within the slack of the engine mounts.
Luckily there was no problem with clearance between the larger diameter gear and the sheet metal cover pan, which was a potential problem I had anticipated. However, there was a clearance problem between the larger gear and an oil drip line [*see below], which I had not anticipated. I was able to solve the clearance problem with some precision soldering iron work :-) on the plastic drip line. Basically, I squished it out of the way without restricting oil flow too much. Here is a picture of the original oil drip line before modification: 
Here is a top view of the modified oil drip line with the new gear installed, showing the tight clearance:
Here is a close-up side view of the modified oil drip line:
Another problem was spline clearance. The modified gear would not slip onto the splines of the output shaft! Evidently the press fit compressed the spline enough to make it an interference fit. I managed to get the gear onto the shaft with a bit of hammering (I didn't hammer directly on the gear, I used a socket to transmit the hammer's force onto the hub of the gear).
I also managed to ruin the original synchros for 5th gear. I heard a nasty crunch as I tightened the nut on the mainshaft - oops, the synchro parts were not lined up properly. Luckily the junkyard gearbox provided free replacements.
* The oil drip line is part of an interesting oiling system. Although the gearbox uses "splash lubrication", this does not simply mean gears churning through the sump. Splash from some of the gears is directed onto a tray, which connects to a series of troughs or small "canals" which carry oil to each gear, bearing, etc. One of these troughs stretches out to the sheet metal pan covering 5th gear, which in turn directs it into a drilling through the input shaft, which provides lubrication to bearings on some of the gears.
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- Tom Leone TGLEONE AT GMAIL DOT COM
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