Bearzah

iTrader: (6)

I need help with a little tranny / shifter rattle.
I've searched the forum and nada.

I had my car jacked up for a couple hours while replacing an exhaust gasket... jacked with passanger front in air. After dropping the car back down and driving home, I noticed 5th gear was rattling through the shifter and seems to be getting worse today.

I really don't know if having the car in the air is related, but, that's when it changed.

Here is a video of the problem in action.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdvLUSDD1uY
Here is a video of the noise WITHOUT the shifter even in.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIUKCR7mZaU

Any sugestions? Its the stock shifter.

UPDATE:
Soooooo... I'm thinking it's not the bushings.

After some inspection I noticed the nut, spring and ball bearing that screws into the back of the shifter housing was gone... must have fell out. This spring and ball press up against the spindle select lock. (see attached photo for reference.. page 1-G6 of 1985 engine and chasis parts fiche...http://foxed.ca/rx7manual/manuals/pa...000A-4600A.pdf).
I was able to source a set from my parts car (parts cars = gold!!!) and put everything back together. STILL "RATTLE"

I'm thinking the "escape" of the bolt, spring and ball was very recent...

Could I have lost a lot of gear oil that high up? Maybe I just need to add some oil.

Ideas???

Thanks,
-Chris

trochoid

iTrader: (6)

That does not sound well at all. Have you checked the fluid level? I would change it out either way and go with a premium synthetic. Unfortunately I'm afraid the damage is already done if the fluid is low.

Jeff20B

iTrader: (13)

Grease, dude. Fill the shifter housing full of grease.

Bearzah

iTrader: (6)

Serviced the tranny... oil was dirty but not bad and didnt look low.

Toped it off and added some gear oil to the shifter housing... still same symptoms. noises in 5th.

I hope I don't need to swap the tranny, this one looks like it's already been rebuilt with signs of silicon at all joints.

luckily I have an '83 parts car I can steal the tranny from.... but, I've dropped a tranny once and am not looking forward to doing it again.

Any other suggestions?

trochoid

iTrader: (6)

Yep, get out the parts car and get busy.

Carl

iTrader: (2)

A couple of thoughts. Check to make sure that the spring that returns the shifter to neutral is still installed correctly. A broken or missing or mis-installed spring could allow the shifter to rattle around. That could have happened when the spring you are talking about went missing.

I had some serious rattling noises when I broke the main transmission mount. The rubber ripped away from the metal mount in a racing accident and left me with a serious rattle (mostly when starting/stopping/accelerating). You have to look fairly closely at the mount to see a failure. I guess it is possible that jacking up the car could have pushed a marginal mount over the edge?

Good Luck,

Carl

Bearzah

iTrader: (6)

The "good" = I Swapped the tranny and no more noice in 5th (Thanks Joe)

The "Bad" = Now, when I downshift to 3rd, 2nd or 1st it "clunks" in or just grinds.
Everyone thinks its syncros, but, wouldn't that also affect upshifting?
Upshifting is VERY smooth and tight and the clutch feels great and does not slip.

I get the feeling I need to swap my tranny AGAIN.

Any ideas?

BlackWorksInc

Funny that you mention this because I just had a car come into the dealership with a syncro related problem.

Was a 2006 Scion tC, when it went into 5th gear and you gave it gas the shifter popped out of gear. But, when you simply coasted and shifted into 5th without accelerating it would coast in 5th fine. I talked to a coworker who had more experience with these things and he told me it was most likely because of the way the syncro had worn, and on upshifting it was breaking loose because it was so worn, but the backlash from just coasting wsn't enough to pop it out. Perhaps the previous owner did hard down shifts in those gears?

Jeff20B

iTrader: (13)

^ I agree with that observation.

Bear, if you're feeling adventerous, you could try swaping the tailhousing+rod and shifter from the nice shifting tranny to the one with the good gears. I wish I had done that on mine because it shifts poorly, but the gears don't grind at all and seem quiet. The tranny in Percent's car shifts great, but grinds whether you upshift or downshift quickly into 2nd.

Bearzah

iTrader: (6)

Last night I put the 3rd tranny in this week (down to 1.5 hours for a tranny swap.. including full service) and it's all good. Down shifts great, no noise or vibration.

Everyone seems to agree the sycros were going out on that last tranny.

I sure hope I'm done with this

We can hope...

Thanks Robert (RW-7) and Joe (Joemaddox) for all your help and parts.