Gearbox rebuild time - any tips/experience?

[lockwood77]

Well, my rather expensive gamble on swapping my FD\'s starting-to-die gearbox for a spare unknown one knocking around didn\'t pay off - it\'s worse than the original! So much for three bottles of Redline MT-90 and £300 fitting cost...

So, time to bite the bullet and get my original rebuilt. Does anyone have experience of this? There is a local place (Nottingham) who send them off to a place in Northampton, who they rate and only use OEM parts. They advised me not to use anyone in Nottingham (anti-competitive or genuine experience, I don\'t know!) Can\'t give me a price until the box is opened up, which I suppose is fair enough as it\'s impossible to know what needs fixing. They reckon it\'s about a five day turnaround assuming parts availability, which is handy as I\'m supposed to be at Oulton on Friday 13th!

Are the OEM parts likely to be in stock/easily obtained (could just be synchros hopefully, 5th and maybe 2nd)? Are there any aftermarket parts available instead?

What have people paid for a rebuild in the past (inc. or ex. fitting, which I will be paying for as I can\'t do it myself)?

[Goopyperformance]

Can you find a replacement?

There is a few specialty tools that will need.

[Grant Monkhouse]

Who charged you £300 for swapping a gear box??!! I can do it myself with the car on ramps and jack in about 3 hours so shouldnt take a garage much longer than that with ramps and proper tools, even at £50 an hour.

A gear box rebuild should be aroun 3-400 quid. I enquired about it not so long ago at a place in cleckheaton in west Yorkshire. Any gear box reconditioners should be able to do for you with a quick turn around.

[lockwood77]

Apparently it took them quite a while! The pull type clutch was a pain amongst other things. I had a quote for roughly the same amount from another place and asking around mates who\'ve had gearbox work done they seemed to think it was fairly par for the course.

£3-400 would be a bonus, I was expecting possibly more, I suppose I have to factor another swap on top of that too, maybe get it a bit cheaper this time. All depends on exactly what needs replacing no doubt!

I don\'t fancy a replacement, having tried it once - at least a rebuild means I know it\'s good and should last a while, all things being equal.