Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting MTX75 bit the dust

I was driving away from the gas station on Tuesday about 2 and i grinded the gears upshifting to 2nd (not driving very hard) and i heard a pop and some soft metal banging for a second, then my shifter was completely disconnected to the tranny and i was stuck in neutral. I let off the gas and drifted for a while until i reached a safe part of the road to pull over. About 10 mins later, I called Ford's Emergency number and told them what happened and they called a towtruck for me. (Note: I grabbed all of my manuals, warranty info and proceeded to lock myself out of the car... unintentionally)

Obviously the towtruck took his sweet time (I had lunch and got a nifty sunburn while waiting the three and a half hours for the towtruck to arrive. The funny part is that I was in a fairly busy urban/suburban part of town (on the border of Cupertino and Sunnyvale for you NorCal people). It took 2 hours just for the 1st cop to find me and pull over. She called in my situation and told them to hurry it up (it still took an hour and a half after she called it in).

The car didn't make it to the dealer until after 5:00 in the evening, so the dealer didn't have anyone to talk to me. I left the keys with them and came back the next morning. I talked to a service rep and asked him to do some routine maintainance while it was in the shop. He examined the shifter and said that it would be a warranty item since I only had 31,1XX miles on the car. (WHEW!) I got home today and I heard a message on my machine from the service rep saying that my tranny had disentigrated and that they had ordered me a new one.

Has anyone had this happen? I have heard about all of the problems with the synchros, but it seems like you guys had been able to at least get into one gear. It felt like my entire shifter-tranny linkage had disconnected, which suggests to me that it had to be all of the synchros going at once or something larger.

I guess I would be asking Terry Haines mainly, but do any of you guys have suggestions or comments with regards to what else I should have them look at? I was thinking the clutch - to make sure than all of the teeth are in once piece with no visible damage. Also I had the Friction Modifier added with new tranny fluid early in the car's life and I was wondering if that is a free thing when the tranny is swapped...

I know Terry has had at least one "conference" or speech or something describing how to extend the life of the MTX-75. From my standpoint, I don't see why they didn't upgrade the tranny when they upgraded the hp/tq ratings when Ford put the SVT emblem on the contour. Of course it probably had everything to do with Ford's cost-cutting "engineers".

First off the engineers dont 'cost cut' the 'bean counters do!...Most people know that the diff is the weak link in the MTX,sounds like yours is shot or the shifter bolt sheared and jamed it in gear or the sheared bolt head went out thru the gear case...none of the probs are new.I've been discribing them for many months....but few seem to take heed.At least its a warranty,pity you dont get a Quaife or Torsen in that new trans eh!!!