[TR] Think I found the cause

Jim Muller jimmuller at rcn.com
Thu Sep 30 20:20:56 MDT 2010


...of the terrible tranny squealing.  It's been a while.  The 
tranny's been sitting on my garage floor partially dissasembled for a 
month.

You may (but probably don't) remember that I thought it happened 
whenever the layshaft was turning.  Someone also suggesed it could be 
the input bearing.

The winner was...(drum roll, pun intended)...the roller bearing set 
between the input shaft and the mainshaft.  Nothing else looked amiss 
but both the front end of the mainshaft and the hole in the rear of 
the input shaft looked discolored, a bit brown and covered with a 
dark brown gunk.  The bearing itself can best be described as looking 
rusty, especially the cage, though none of the rollers appeared 
damaged to the naked eye.  Perhaps they were worn.  The brass synchro 
ring on the input shaft, which would be 4th, was stuck to its cone 
but came off with a bit of prying.  (I asked it how it's bank account 
was doing and it came undone, so to speak.)

Fortnunately the bearing races look good, no pitting or scoring 
either on the mainshaft or in the the input shaft.  The layshaft 
bearings and thrust washers look fine.  The layshaft shows no wear on 
the bearing surfaces.  The main bearings look good.

So the noise would seem to have been happening whenever the input and 
mainshafts were turning at different speeds, which means in neutral 
and in any gear except 4th.  This would explain how I was able to 
drive 55 miles home from work in 4th but then have a problem develop 
as I was driving through town close to home.  I might have seemed as 
do to the layshaft turning but I did not actually try every gear 
combination and never hit 4th once I heard the noise.

Well, you see something new every day.  With a bit of luck it should 
all be back together soon.  All I need is a few 10-day weeks.  Or 
some 36-hour days.

Jim Muller
jimmuller at rcn.com


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