SERIOUS PROBLEM (Jake Vogel/TKR Mark)
 

I am having Jake Vogel install my transmission,

I had TKR Mark build the inside from a TRE stage 2, 1g and the EVO 3 3rd and 4th gears with a 4spider diff from Speedfreak (MO).

before putting the transmission in Jake called me and said it wouldn't shift into 5th or reverse

so i went to his shop
I called mark he told me to have jake open the trans, thinking maybe jake dropped it.

Inside of the trans:

The shift fork for 5th was too small and didnt line up right with the pin on the rail, it was completely different than my 2g shift fork. some of the bearing were loose, it was a little dirty inside the trans, there was a chip on one of the teeth and it was all pressed together too hard forcing it into the housing...

THE CENTER DIFF was not a 4 spider....
I opened the center diff to find a regular 2 spider.

IDK who to trust, what's going on or what to do. Mark loaded the trans into my car, jake took it out.

The problem i'm faced with:
Jake had the transmission for 3 weeks before getting around to installing it, because other costumers cars kept coming first or he had family issues.
He's also converting his 2g to awd and getting a built trans.

How do i know if mark put the evo gears in, and if he put the 4 spider in?

Did Mo actually give mark a 4 spider?

Why can't you just trust people these days?

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM
 

thats pretty bad man. so what did jake say when it was opened up?

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM
 

I thought everyone knew better than to let Jake Vogel touch their cars.

Sorry, but this is one can of worms I'm staying away from.

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM
 

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM at Jake Vogel's shop
 

Momin is a complete stand-up guy, and I hope his name doesn't get drug into this any further.

As for the rest of the situation, yup sounds like a can of worms. It's really too bad that this happened, and was a purely local ordeal. Sorry to hear this happened to you :(

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM at Jake Vogel's shop
 

I saw some of the assembly of the tranny. It was interesting listening to him explaining what he was doing. I never knew evo 3 gears fitt in a dsm transmission ect nice lecture session.

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM at Jake Vogel's shop
 

Cam(OP) and I have been texting about this. And I do not want to get drug into this, but he asked me to post up that I did indeed drop off a 4 spider diff.. I did. I do not intend to point fingers as I do not know anything about what was done after I dropped off the center diff, but mistakes happen, and maybe the center diff is around somewhere?

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM at Jake Vogel's shop
 

I think mark should check his work area. I'm not saying this was intentional. I know the tre transmission had a 2spider in it, maybe he ACCIDENTLY put that one in during the install, they look similar on the outside.

Mark gave the transmission back to me with sealed with an orange gasket and i watched jake open it up. If jake was going to go through the trouble of intentionally swapping parts than i would hope he'd be smart enough to make it work long enough for me to drive it and break it but the 1g 5th/R shift fork didn't work in the 2g housing. it's a lot smaller and the pins dont line up.

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM at Jake Vogel's shop
 

Why can't you trust anyone? Instead of taking the cheap route, and potential headaches, and just go with a proven, trusted company. I have dealt with John Shephard many times, standup guy and standup company. Get something that is gonna last, be done right the first time, and be done with it. If you bitch about money, then just sell the car. Or get a loan. W/e. Do it right the first time. DSMs, when done right, are not cheap to own. Shit breaks, $2500 trannys are disposable. If that upsets your stomach, get out now.

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM at Jake Vogel's shop
 

Some one just slipped up on the 4 spider thats all. and where do u think i got the evo gears... shep.

Mark checked the other diff at his house, it's also a 2 spider. He said the one that i have in there is the one from Mo

Mo had to pull the diff from a car maybe he pulled the wrong one?

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM at Jake Vogel's shop
 

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM at Jake Vogel's shop
 

I'd be more concerned about Jake swapping trannies with some junk he had laying around. Mark has always been a stand-up guy along with Mo.

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM at Jake Vogel's shop
 

Yeah when I get work done I go to reputable shops, no offense to anyone but it's just I would rather be angry at a shop in a professional manner than risk being angry at someone and letting it get personal.

When going with a shop I go with a shop I trust and pay the money. If I were to choose someone I would sit next to them while they work on it, not only to see first hand what's going on but also because I'm interested in learning.

This shit's expensive, I'm learning right now I should do shit right. All we can do is learn from our mistakes, I hope you learned from yours.

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM at Jake Vogel's shop
 

Everyone makes mistakes. But to cover my end, Cam asked if I'd check what I have in another tranny I have.. I will. Unfortunately it's in a storage unit buried under a ton of stuff, then I have to disassemble it, which will need an impact of some sort. Hoping to clear my end in the next few days.

That being said, I remember looking at the diff to make sure it was all good before I dropped it off.. I remember a 4 spider.

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM at Jake Vogel's shop
 

Would he honestly go through all that trouble and then have it not work? It had the wrong size shift forks on 5/r. And he would have had to of used the same gasket mark used i dont think any one was trying to rip me off i think it was just a mix up.

but i know that i dont want to just donate $300 to some one. I allready had a 2 spider, i could have kept that and my $300...

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM at Jake Vogel's shop
 

To start with...

Does any one know if all the gears sets, shift forks, bearings, are identical in a 1g trans and 2g trans? Mark said he took a Stage whatever 1g trans and put it in Cameron's 2g case... The reason I ask is I have Cameron's 5th gear sitting on a shelf from when I pulled the transmission apart the first time and it has a significantly larger hub, synchro's and slider along with the larger shift fork.

Now the difference in shift forks piviots the smaller shift fork towards the outside of the transmission, causing the shift rail to twist when the shift fork is lined up with the gear set.

Here are a few pictures...

http://vogelperformance.com/cameron/2.JPG
http://vogelperformance.com/cameron/3.jpg
http://vogelperformance.com/cameron/4.jpg
http://vogelperformance.com/cameron/5.jpg
http://vogelperformance.com/cameron/6.jpg

As you can see, when the shift rail is straight, the shift fork inside the trans is why off. Also the difference in size between a stock 5th gear shift fork and whatever the other one is, I'm curious if the shift forks between 1g and 2g are different. So if he would have used a 1g shift rail, it probably would have worked?

There is no way in hell this thing could have shifted on the bench, I dont care what anyone says... You can obviously see the difference, if you put a pin in that shift fork when its rotated to line up with the gear set, the rail turns quite a ways to where the shift linkages wont even touch it.

You guys can say whatever you want about me... I know I didnt touch this trans. It sat in the same spot until I went to put it in. This is the main reason why I told him I did not want to rebuild the trans so he went to mark, I did not want the liability. Then this shit happens and of course its my fault. I should have just rebuilt the trans to begin with and at least make it worth everyone blaming me.

As far as the 4 spider goes, I dont know what happened there. There is some engraving on the outside of the center diff housing that looks as if it could have been machined? Maybe a mix up? All I know is this trans has never been apart since mark put it together.

If you are going to judge me, judge me for who I am today, not yesterday or last year, or even 10 years ago... Look at me today and judge me! I was only here to do the trans swap. I pulled the trans, he had it built, I put it back in. Thats all there is to it. The problem her is between Cameron and Mark...

And Cameron made a good point, if I honestly went through it, why wouldnt I put it back together to make it work so he wouldnt know I took shit out of it?? Why would I put the trans in, start to hook up the shift linkages only to find out there is no 5th/rev, kind of a waste of time. His car has been sitting in my shop for 6 weeks. I would like it gone, not sitting there taking up space even longer.

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM at Jake Vogel's shop
 

And I'm not interested in giving good parts only to be accused of something..

Like I mentioned, I'm going to look into it. I'm not sure there was any need of making a post like this that only hurts the situation and kind of pisses off the people you are trying to work through your situation with.

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM at Jake Vogel's shop
 

Mo... I will take a few pictures of the numbers for you to see if the case looks similar. I only have one picture of the center diff and thats when we took it apart:

http://vogelperformance.com/cameron/7.jpg

I'll get a few pictures this afternoon.

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM at Jake Vogel's shop
 

http://vogelperformance.com/cameron/4.jpg


Thats a pretty bad mistake and should not have been put together like this. I think it shows lack of knowledge, or lack of paying attention.

At this point it should be taken completely apart, gears, hubs, syncros, bearings, should all be inspected. Then bearing end play/pre-load should be measured as it should have been.

Setting bearing endplay/pre-load is crucial as all the parts were installed into a new case, and should have been checked/set, but I doubt it was.

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM at Jake Vogel's shop
 

I have a video of how loose the center diff was. Uploading it now...

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM at Jake Vogel's shop
 

Mo... Found some pictures Cameron took last night:

http://vogelperformance.com/cameron/8.jpg
http://vogelperformance.com/cameron/9.jpg

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM at Jake Vogel's shop
 

Yeah, he sent me those pics. Unfortunately there is nothing there that triggers if that is the same one I gave or not. I was hoping there would be some chipped teeth or something I could point to to say it isn't the same one, but it just looks like a center diff..

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM (Jake Vogel/TKR Mark)
 

Thank you to everyone involved for keeping this thread above the belt. When parts come from 3-4-5 different people it becomes a mess very quickly. Please keep things on the up-and-up!

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM (Jake Vogel/TKR Mark)
 

Video of end play from the center diff...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ALW-U3GQDc

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM (Jake Vogel/TKR Mark)
 

Is everyone sure that it was shimmed correctly? If its the same one that came out it would be fine to go back in 99% of the time. But from another tranny it would have to be shimmed to spec.

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM (Jake Vogel/TKR Mark)
 

STI FTW!!!!!!!! =)

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM (Jake Vogel/TKR Mark)
 

I had an issue with Mark recently also. He sold my buddy his "Evo 3" head and intake manifold to match it. After getting everything assembled and ready to start the car, I double checked to make sure everything spun freely and I could not get the cams to spin. I tried everything from swapping cams to bleeding the lifters and I also had other people come over to figure the issue out. It ends up he mixed up the cam caps and he said he would not refund the money since I had the head for a couple of weeks and I could have messed it up. I asked him to check other heads he had laying around but he simply just told me he didn't mix them up. This meant all the new gaskets, time, fluids and everything had to be bought again and Mark wouldn't own up to his mistake. He did offer to take everything and swap it into another head, but from my experience you don't just slap parts into other heads. Now prior to this I had nothing but good transactions with him and went to him for a lot of parts. But I felt this was just a slap in the face and I will NEVER be dealing with him again.

OP good luck getting this resolved. I hope you figure it all out. I had to share my recent experience with him as I feel it's somewhat relevant.

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM (Jake Vogel/TKR Mark)
 

had one.... went dsm FTW

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM (Jake Vogel/TKR Mark)
 

not sure at all, and now i really dk how to know if it will be?

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM (Jake Vogel/TKR Mark)
 

Are you sure the transaxle case adapter is still tight up to the transaxle case? I have had the transaxle case adapter break free of the transaxle case when taking the input shaft and intermediate shaft lock nuts off.

It the video the transaxle case adapter looks like its in contact with 5th gear. For how loose that is in the video there would have to be no shim, worn/bad bearings, if the two housing are tight.

And from what I recall its a difference in the 5th gear hub/slider from a early 1g to the late 1g and into the 2g they switched to use the cast iron 5th/rev shift fork. I am not sure but I would guess the 5th/rev shift rails are different also.

Any time I install a 4 spider center diff its easy to look inside to see all 4 spider gears.

Also at that point why not check the center diff end play per the factory manual and tell us, it was X off?

As for the Evo 3/4th gears check out this page, there is a lot of good DSM tranny info.
http://www.jackstransmissions.com/pages/tech-articles

You will notice the EVO 3 and 4 gears have 4 holes for tabs off the double synchro, it is easy to look in from the side of the gear set and see if there at tabs going down into the 3/4th gears. If they are not present its not an evo 3 or 4th gear.
http://www.jackstransmissions.com/pa...-synchro-rings



~John

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM (Jake Vogel/TKR Mark)
 

Im waiting on marks side of the story on this one its not looking good that he hasnt responded. Mark sold me a wheel bearing/ hub and when it arrived it was obviously a bad wheel bearing at the time i didnt care about causing a fuss about a $30 used part. then My buddy derrick bought an oil filter housing from mark through my paypal and when that arrived its threads where stripped out. I just felt that he sold parts without checking them out really good. but that tranny looks like a hot mess

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM (Jake Vogel/TKR Mark)
 

Mo is checking his other transmission today to see if he gave me the wrong diff. I talked to mark on the phone last night, he said he'll put it back together for me if i want. He said the reason it was still dirty inside is because the "hot tank only gets so much". He didn't say why he put the wrong shift fork in but i'm just trying to focus on getting every thing straightened out and fixed.

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM (Jake Vogel/TKR Mark)
 

F' that. Kick his ass!!!

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM (Jake Vogel/TKR Mark)
 

Honestly, I spent $560 on the evo gears, I gave mark $850... $300 was for the 4 spider(to Mo), $350 was for parts out of the 1g TRE and $200 was to assemble it.

I would probably be happiest if Mark gave me the $200 back since it wasn't assembled properly. THEN i could take that money and pay a transmission shop to assemble it and shim it properly.

What if mark puts it back together again and it's not shimmed properly and it grenades on the inside again? Who's going to pay for the parts? If mark could give me some sort of warranty on his work i would be fine with that but if he can't id rather pay a transmission shop

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM (Jake Vogel/TKR Mark)
 

This is the territory you enter when you have a buddy do stuff on the side. I say let mark fix the problem and then you get what you pay for on a cheek job, or just walk away and send it to shep like you should have in the first place.

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM (Jake Vogel/TKR Mark)
 

You are retarded. You could of bought a new/rebuilt trans from any of teh 3 big names in the business.

Not only did u spend more money, you even did more work and spent more time on this shit deal.

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM (Jake Vogel/TKR Mark)
 

You really did get hosed on the deal. I would never trust a local (aside from shops) to build anything for me. I would've bought a big name trans instead of waste time and money dinkin around. If Shep's trannys break anyway, why would you have someone of lesser knowledge build one? Anyway you look at it, it will break again.

In any case, I'd ask Mark for the money back. Sell all your trans parts but the evo gears, send them to Shep, TRE, or Jack's and have them build it.

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM (Jake Vogel/TKR Mark)
 

Apparently... Shep charges $300 for assembly. Send everything in a box and you're set. Thats the route i would go.

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM (Jake Vogel/TKR Mark)
 

Good luck trying to get any money back from Mark..

Re: SERIOUS PROBLEM (Jake Vogel/TKR Mark)
 

Good luck getting your money back. You should just throw that tranny threw his window. I got a tranny from mark and it lasted 2 miles. He said it was good. I didn't bother to piss and moan about it. I figured he would make it in a bs match. I wouldn't buy anything from him. Everything he does is hack job.