I came across a couple Bugeye driving videos that are great teaching material, because they illustrate why you have to be gentle with your shift lever or you will destroy your gearbox. In the videos, every time this driver shifts, you can hear the gears crunching, and crunching doesn’t come without a cost.
These videos have now been removed from YouTube, so we can’t reference them any longer, but they were valuable because you can hear how it sounds when you your gearbox is in pain. Ultimately, it is up to the driver to modulate their gearshift lever at a pace that is agreeable to the particular gearbox… yank the lever too fast, and the gearbox will complain or grind. Keep doing it, and the gearbox will need a rebuild. We’ve replaced the videos with pictures of smashed teeth from clutch issues and/or excessively rapid shifting.
I mean no disrespect to the Bugeye owner who posted those videos, and they were extremely useful clips to help the rest of us save our precious gears. In fairness, the gearbox shown may have been toast before that owner got his car, or maybe there is a hydraulic issue that is preventing the clutch from fully disengaging, but regardless, crunching is bad, and it may be too late for this gearbox… but there’s still time for yours! (He will need a rebuilt gearbox and to make sure his clutch is working properly.)
Let’s say that every gearbox has 500 crunches available in its lifetime before it’s completely spent. Grinding makes metal particles, and, each time you crunch, more particles suspended in the oil will accelerate the demise of your original components, basically acting as a liquified sandpaper inside your transmission and chewing up every machined surface in sight. So please make sure you modulate your shift speed accordingly. You don’t have to baby these cars, but if the shifter makes noise, you back off. Once you learn the proper pacing for your unique gearbox, make sure that you always remember that pacing so you don’t use up any of your 500 grinding coupons.
Below is the Ford five speed cluster gear assembly, which is much more stout compared to the stock gear set, and that’s one of the reasons why we’re big advocates for our Ford five-speed conversion; it’s not only wonderful because you have an overdrive gear, but it’s sensational because the pieces are built for a much heavier vehicle, so if you convert to a five-speed, you have a much more durable and stronger gear set, and that’s a bonus that everyone who drives your Bugeye will enjoy for years to come. The Datsun five speed was once the standard for five-speeds, but those gear sets were much more fragile since they were built for the lightweight B-210, will the Ford conversion kit was originally built for the much more robust Ford Sierra.
Below we have linked our catalog offering of rebuilt original smooth case gear boxes, rebuilt ribbed-case rebuilt boxes, and our Ford five speed transmission kit (with templates and custom shift lever), all of which can help you upgrade your Sprite, especially if your transmission has reached its limit. The way that you can tell you’re due for one of these products is if you upshift or downshift at a reasonable pace and the transmission makes a crunching noise, usually in one gear. The fellow shown in the videos (unfortunately) has multiple gears worn-out judging from the noises. If you’re gentle with your gearbox it’ll last you for another 60 years!
