What should the normal amount of transmission noise sound like in an '83 GSL (5-spd)? Should you be able to hear it at all in the forward gears?

 

No.

Mine whines like it has straight-cut gears. It's kinda soothing, actually But it is impossible to shift from high RPM so it's got to come out...

 

My '83 GSL whines in every gear but 4th, then I got a custom free flowing exhaust and can't hear the whining. It solved my problem. The tranny still pulls hard (hell, i've chirped the tires in third twice since i had it.), no problems shifting at high or low rpms.

 

I don't hear my transmission whine in any forward gears and it shouldn't because all forward gears have synchro's. The only gear that it whines in is reverse because it is a straight cut gear - no synchro.

 

mine allways whine a lot, foward and reverse.

 

Mine does. I think 4th and 5th are the ones that don't whine. Reverse does, but it's got a different whine. And in first, it goes real slow.

 

I'm not talking about a loud obnoxious RRRRRRRRR!!!!!! like reverse gear, just a gentle wwwhhhhrrrrrrrrrrr... it increases in pitch as I increase speed and/or upshift.

 

the funny thing is, my '80 trans (at 142k miles) shifted like butter and it made no noise except for a SLIGHT whine in 5th. and by SLIGHT I mean if you had the radio off and the windows rolled up and all of the rear sound insulation in place and the shifter boot off, you can barely make out a slight difference between 4th gear and 5th gear. (4th gear routes power directly from the input shaft to the output shaft, bypassing the gears entirely, so it rarely makes noise)

I firmly believe that tranny life is directly related to the driver. If you shift hard and force the lever, you're going to go through trannies a lot. If you shift gently, the tranny will like you and still be in the car when the rest of the car is dead. It is possible to shift quickly and gently, BTW - that is unless of course the trans has been abused before by a ham-fisted driver.

Oh yeah and strong clutches kill trannies too

 

Mine whines, rattles and vibrates - it's so bad when shifting around 7k that my teeth chatter while I'm hanging on to the shift ****. It's been doing it for 2 years and it hasn't gotton any worse (knock on wood!!) - so I baby it, talk nice to it, and give it the best oils (redline)..... And no, I don't want to know what the problem is because I can't afford a new tranny right now - I just live with it and hope when the time comes that I come across a low milage tranny hidden away in some bone yard.

 

The reason you get the whine in all but 4th is because its the only gear where the load-path (torque-path)goes directly from the main input shaft to the main output shaft and bypasses the counter shaft.

What this usally says is that one or more of the bearings on the counter shaft (front, center, and rear) is pitted and headed south. In one case so far though the bad bearing was the main shaft front bearing, which I was very surprised to find until I realized that the lower stress on the main shaft of not involving the counter shaft helped to make 4th quiter.

I wouldn't turn up the radio or replace the exhaust to get rid of the noise though. The bad bearing will eventually overheat and lock up which could very well result in cracked gears or shredded teeth.

Good luck.

 

Fcouperus is dead on. My tranny started making some loud whining in all but 4th, a week later the tranny died. My next one started doing the same after a bit, I put Redline MT-90 in there and it quieted down to nothing, lasted me a good year after that when I sold the car. Still going to my knowledge.

 

Oh yeh, I forgot to mention from my previous post the results of the main shaft front bearing examination by some experts. This was the bad bearing which surprisingly quieted down in fourth.

Inspection of the inner race uncovered not only the normal cavitations, but also sharp half moon impressions which lined up with the ball bearing spacing. It turns out that clutch chatter puts enough lateral forces on the main shaft to create these impressions.

So the bottom line is, if you start experiencing tranny noise, it could very well be bad bearings, which could be the result of clutch chatter rather than normal wear and tear of the tranny.

 

while we are on the topic of trannys, when i shift from first to second at high rpm's (like racing) SOMETIMES.. theres a crunch noise if i slam it into second. anyone know what this is? and how bad it is. its only sometimes though, andi know the clutch is in far enough for the gear