Rebuilding the A-833 Four-Speed Tranny - Gear Grabbin'

You're cruising around in your Mopar, and your four-speed is making a little noise. Is it shot? do you need to buy another one? Thankfully, the 833 is virtually an indestructible tranny and can be rebuilt with a little time and patience. With the help of Passon Performance in Sugarloaf, Pennsylvania, we will try to show you as in-depth an article on rebuilding a tranny as you have ever seen. Luckily, most of the parts for these transmissions are still available, so unless you have a major internal meltdown, a rebuild is an option. Be advised, many "parts house" replacement parts for these transmissions are slightly incorrect. This is especially true of the 308 bearing and early synchronizer rings.

The A-833 four-speed was built by New Process. produced from 1964 until 1987, it is most noted for its strength and durability. From 1964 until 1972, it was built in two configurations-a 23-spline input shaft and an 18-spline input shaft. These shafts are not interchangeable alone, and the entire gearset is matched and must be changed as a complete assembly. Typically, the 23-spline units were installed in small-block cars and wedge-headed big-block cars up to 426 ci in 1965. Later, the 383 and 400ci engines received the 23-spline tranny. The 18-spline unit, popularly known as the "Hemi" four-speed, was used in cars equipped with a 440ci engine from 1966 to 1972 and in the famous 426 Hemi engine from 1964 to 1971. After 1972, the 1:1 final-drive-ratio gearset was made for another two years, bringing its production run to an end in 1974. However, there was an overdrive unit that was made from the early '70s until 1987. This had a final drive of .73:1. During the early years of this run, it was mainly placed in A- and F-Body cars (Darts, Dusters, and Aspens/Volares). The later years of this production run were placed in half-ton Dodge trucks. Over the years, there were several different designs of internal parts. An example of this would be the synchronizers. There are also several different case configurations and gearsets.

Walk up to a pile of A-833s at a swap meet, and the most obvious differences are their overall length and output shafts. Early trannies feature a flanged yoke connecting to the driveshaft, and later models had a slip-yoke. Chrysler made two different length A-833s over the years, and while the main gear housings were sized the same-and for the most part were the same casting for most models-the tailshaft housing differed. A- and F-Bodied cars received the shorter output shaft and housings; B-, C-, and E-Bodies received longer tailshafts. The flanged ball-and-trunion output shaft was used in 1964 and 1965. In 1966, the slip-yoke output replaced the ball-and-trunion on all A-833s. But enough with the history lesson, let's get dirty.