Alas, on my way back from the Oswego Harborfest last night (Any of you guys go?) I down shifted coming up to a stop light and my transmission felt like crap....

The vibrations that were in 5th gear are now in 3rd, 4th, 5th and are 100 times worse...
There's intermittent clicking in the tranny...

And I feel stuff moving when I shift =(

Managed to travel the 45 miles from when it happend to get back to my dorm, but I think it's gonna be a while before it moves again. =(
(towing it back to syracuse tonight if all goes well)

I'm thinking/hoping this is a bearing or two?
Does that sound right?
(The vibration stays if I depress (kind of a counter-intuitive word, eh?) the clutch... but only when I'm above 30 or so miles an hour)

By the way, if you're around here and you didn't go, you missed a great festival =)
(minus the fireworks.... the computer died about halfway through and there were no high-flying fireballs for the rest.... The finale sucked =)

 

Probably a couple bad bearings in the transmission. Try to find someone who's parting out a car. Much easier to replaCE a trans than to repair one. Or you can try a junkyard car.

B

 

I have another tranny in my parts car... but the syncros aren't as good....
As long as it's not gonna be hell I'd rather rebuild... I have access to tools and such that would be required...


Besides, who likes to do anything the easy way? =)

 

Hell, if I ever opted for "the easy way", I'd be another 2g under where I am now and my car probably *still* wouldn't be on the road.

Know how much Rx7Heaven wanted for a simple brake job (pads, shoes, flush, bleeding, adjustment and a possible wheel cyl or caliper).... 6 hours labour! at nearly a hundred dollars apiece! 600 smackers in labour alone!

After spending a little over a thousand in parts ALONE and doing the labour myself, I'd say that they're full of **** :P I've only got one brake job under my belt (with supervision from my dad's friend so I didn't **** up) and I *know* I could do the complete system in less than six now!

Not to mention the unseizing the engine (easy way: replace engine, assume this one's dead when it was just a little carbon-locked)... starting problems (easy way: take it to a garage who would have repalced the whole system before they found the *real* problem was a set of fusible links I got replacements for free)... and all the towing to garages to get things done "the easy way"...

Take the high road, you learn SO MUCH MORE when you do, and you can actually say "yeah, this car... MY car... I know her inside and out, and have done most if not all of the work on her"

Note: *refuses to do suspension himself because of lack of proper equipment and experience with things like spring compressors*... besides.. you have to get it aligned anyway afterwards, and we have a friend who works at a Midas... so no biggie At least I *picked* my own suspension components, bought them, and am going to bring them with me to have them installed... THEY may do the work, but it's *my* research and knowledge that chose the parts....

Jon

 

Swap the tranny in from your parts car and use that to drive while you rebuild your original one. That way you can take your time and still get to drive the 7. It's not hard to drop a tranny, you can do it man.

 

i feel your pain man. mine has been sitting for about 2 weeks now cause parts/tools/and most of all EXPERIENCE are stopping me. well the 2 days i did drive it was fun:P

 

Of course, if you have an extra transmission, rebuild one while limping along on the other. Parts are a mite expensive, and the work is rather fine, but it's not rocket science, and it CAN be fun. I haven't rebuilt a 7 transmission, but I assume it's a rather standard constant-mesh with cone-and-dog synchros, in which case the synchros themselves are usually pretty cheap. Sometimes they're reversible-symetrical so you just flip them. Usually they come apart with interior and exterior circlip pliers and maybe a big soft mallet (I got a rubber one filled with leadshot at a toolshop sale for $5) and drift. Usually it's the bearngs that cost the Big Bux.

Rebuilding your transmission is very satisfying. And it convinces you to use the best gearlube you can get, which I think is Redline MTF, by consensus.

B


B

 

Thanks for the insight guys...
I think I'm gonna swap and then rebuild as was suggested.....
Now we'll see if I can do it in one weekend at home (uh, the swap, that is... hehe)

Good luck with yours grifter =)

 

Wow... It wasn't the transmission!! (sort of)

It ended up being the U-joints... one had apparently completely seized in one direction. (imagine my relief!)

But now the 5th gear whining is annoying...

and there's something worse!

My dad has suggested that the throw-out bearing could be the cause of a rumbling when I depress the clutch.

Is this easy/cheap to change?
I was told that I probably should replace the clutch at the same time?

Can this damage anything as it deteriorates? Or will it just be annoying?

 

Pop's is probably correct.
The throw out bearing is cheap (standard fare to change when doing a clutch). You have to drop the trans to do so. How old is the clutch? If it's getting up there in milage, it may not be a bad idea to do it since you'll have the trans out anyhow. Not sure what would happen if you rode it out until complete failure. I'd guess you'd eat the clutch fork?

 

cool.

it sounds like it wouldn't be difficult to change just the bearing then?

The clutch feels great, and IIRC the previous owner said it was fairly new. (I've only put 3000 miles or so on it since then)

 

::bump::

 

gotta pull the trans to change the throwout bearing and yes, it's not difficult. unhook it from the clutch fork. grease the inputshaft including the splines and surface throwout bearing slides on. put new t/o/b on there, hook it to clutch fork. test sliding it. reinstall.

be sure to check the clutch while tranny's out, make sure it really is newish.

now is a prime time to replace the front and rear transmission seals. they do leak over time, especially front one which can disintegrate!

ALSO great time to upgrade to a semi-close ratio rear wheel drive 626 transmission