What is a Thrust Washer and Why Should I Care?

Cappy · #1 05-17-2005, 07:28 AM

Had my local tranny guy do the annual service yesterday. He showed me a piece of a black plastic ring that was in my pan, and said it was a part of a thrust washer. There was a small amount of silver in the filter, but nothing unusual. He did say now that this washer is gone I'll have two pieces of metal rubbing against each other in there, and they will eventually wear out. OK so what does that mean? Heck, I'm gonna die someday, but probably not tomorrow. I'm wondering if I should pay someone to tear apart the tranny & replace this washer, or should I just drive it till it starts making noise or dies. Probably not a whole lot of money difference between the two, and I'm guessing that I might go for tens of thousands of miles without a problem. But then again, I'm just guessing. Any of you 4eat guys out there want to hazard a guess? Am I making the right decision by taking a "wait and see" approach to this problem? The car's got 142k on it & I've got a bit of death wish for this tranny anyhow since I'd really like to have an excuse to do a 5-speed swap.
Thanks,

svx_commuter · #2 05-17-2005, 10:39 AM

A black "PLastic" thrust washer

How about telling the size of "this object"? A picture taken with a scale or AA battery next to 'the object" would be great.

I am not aware of any plastic parts in the clutch assemblies so they should be safe.

Cappy · #3 05-17-2005, 01:09 PM

I don't have a digital camera, but it's a jet black, hard plastic ring, 72mm OD, 53mm ID (therefore a 9.5mm "race") and only about 1 or 1.5 mm thick. The piece I have is about 1/3 of the ring. God only knows where the rest of it is. And I know the guy isn't BS'ing me because he doesn't rebuild Japanese trannys. I looked in the factory manual and found a number of thrust bearings with corresponding "washers" shown in the varios diagrams. I'll try to match up the sizes when I get a chance, if that's possible. a few of the diagrams have dimensions listed, so I might get lucky. Oh, and this IS a rebuilt tranny from it's previous owner, so I guess it's possible that this is a piece of debris from the original transmission.