T20 rebuild. No thrust washers!?!

[Mholtz]

Hey all! Long time since I have posted. Rebuilding my t20 from my 2000 max IV. First time I have rebuilt it. Tore it apart and first off noticed there is not one thrust washer anywhere to be found! I'm guessing this is why my drum looks like it does in this first picture. The one looks fine and the other is worn! It wore grooves in it and of course detroyed my planet gear needle bearings. I ordered a new drum but can anyone tell me if any t20s did not run thrust washers? I'm also wondering how many to put back in it since I have no clue how many I am missing. Thanks!IMG_20200817_172746430.jpgIMG_20200815_124230695.jpg

[dirtdobber]

That looks bad. This is a great step by step guide to tearing down and reassembling a T20. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuifk0kE7vg

You need to order a thrust washer kit and it will contain the correct number of washers, as there are other thrust washers in the transmission other than those with the sun gear. To answer your question, I do believe older models of the T20 did not have thrust washers. But, I don't believe the lack of thrust washers caused your damage. Perhaps the bearings failure occurred first and led to the drum damage. There is also the possibility that more is going wrong. If that half of the transmission was too tight, i.e. lacked internal clearance, it could have caused the damage. Was the carrier plate chewed up like the drum?

[Don]

The older T20s didn't use most of the thrust washers that the later models do. If you install thrust washers in the older models without machining the surfaces to create space, the shaft won't turn once the cases are bolted together.

[Mholtz]

Thanks guys. The carrier plate was not chewed up. Everything else inside looks pretty good after I got done cleaning it all up. Had ALOT of the metal gray gunk build up inside. Only the three planet gear needle bearings were destroyed on one side. The other side was fine. I ordered the rebuild kit and should be coming soon. I'll post some finished pics when I get the kit. The reason for the rebuild was it not steering to the right well and that's the side of transmission that was beat up. I also got new bands coming.