why is my tranny growling at me?
 

under load, my tranny growls pretty loud. im not sure if something is grinding, or if its vibration from bad mounts, or what. before, i would only hear it going around corners but lately under load it makes the noise a lot. anyone have any idea what can be wrong? can it be the driveshaft? mounts? any help is appreciated....

please be more specific... do you get any noise at idle??

no...only under load. if i drive my fd normally (i.e like a granny) cruising on the freeway or just driving through the city, it will be fine...no sounds. but if i get on the throttle (under load), it growls and groans. the sound comes from around the shifter to about the "ashtray" area (or so it seems).

I'm going to go with mounts or the PPF. If you remove the shift boot, you should see if the tranny housing appears to be touching or close to the tunnel. Can you feel the shifter moving to the side?

Usually, growling trannys are a bad bearing, but that tends to be noisiest when you start them cold.

Dave

To expand a bit on Dave G's answer - the noise is probably just normal transmission noise being transmitted to the body due to the shifter touching it.

i'll try to check tomorrow morning if the tranny is touching the tunnel. if its worth anything, theres a short shifter on my fd. i dont know what brand it is because it was put in before i bought the car.

What he said!

is it an auto, if so is the transmission oil getting hot?

its a manual tranny. if this is an idication of anything, i can feel heat on the plastic surround by the shifter. another thing is accelerating while turning, i can hear this growling noise too.

I think I have the same problem in 4th gear under load. The growling I describe as sounding like a Mac Truck (not as loud of course). In my situation I don't think it's mounts, it's something internal. My guess is bearing but I have not diagnosed it yet.

is there a way to inspect the PPF on the car without removing anything?