I saw this listing on ebay, which included the following interesting notes:
(RE: 5-speed X1/9 transaxle)

"There are 4 3rd gears for the 5 speed, 2 different 1st, a bunch of 2nd gears, and again the same for 4th gear. Even 5th gear has 2. I did not know there where that many revisions. So I took it upon myself while rebuilding a few 5speed transmissions, to research this in depth! (Actually I was looking for a 3-4 slider sleeve!) It took a full day to get this right, the changes are sometimes very subtle, no V at the top of the gear but the same amount of teeth. The gears are all brand new, the shaft is brand new, the layshaft and bushings are used but in good shape, the reason I'm including these items is because Fiat changed some of the bushings"

-Is this true?
I would need to go look at the parts books, but there are lots of changes in transaxles used in X1/9s from 1979-88. It is the major reason why supplying parts for these boxes is so challenging, as many cars have non-original boxes in them!

If so, it would explain why my original transmission -for which I paid a shop $650 for a rebuild (1987) broke three times under warranty; the fourth time I was on my own, rebuilt it myself... and have driven something well in excess of 200K trouble-free miles... If those guys were using parts that didn't properly fit; and if I got lucky and got a set of matching parts when I did my rebuild... then that would explain it.

I doubt it ... Gear teeth counts are different in many cases and do not interchange unless you forced it, then it would fail immediately

So far, my transmission seems to be fine... synchros are a little soft, but X1/9's -as I understand it- weren't ever known for being forgiving of sloppy shifting... but for future reference, I would be interested in your comments. I have driven the car 305K myself, and when I did the transmission, it was with used parts (I mixed and matched what appeared to be the best parts of the two transmissions) so I'm thinking it's gotta be a matter of time before I will have to be concerned about doing something with it.

Always!

Do you have those roller bearing steering pivots, as mentioned in Tech Tips
November 2001?

yep.

Are they as durable as the phenolic?

No, since they are not phenolic, but we have had no failures.

Are they still the same price?

Until this production run is gone, yes.

I seem to have some movement in the front suspension.

At 350 thousand miles I am not surprised!!!

I'm not sure where it's coming from. The control arms are new, the tie rod ends and the steering rack are new; that leaves the wheel bearings -which aren't making noise, and the wheels aren't flopping around, so they must be OK- the strut mount, the strut itself, and the ... rods that bolt to the control arms and go towards the front of the car.

Well, if everything is new and you nave no play in everything, but yet you have looseness, I can only conclude that something must be loose!

The bushings into which those mount *seem* to be OK. I looked for replacements for those once, but didn't find any.

Do you mean the rubber bushings at the end of the rod? Or?

Anything subtle about the failure mode of those bushings, or can I assume that if they look OK, that they are?
Thanks :)

Bryce K. Alvarez

I would not assume anything by looking, I would see if they move when loaded/unloaded.