Noise under acceleration

[mightymousetech]

Originally Posted By: inquirer
A few points related to the transmission issues:

• The gear stick moves when in 5th. It goes back when I lift my foot from the throttle and moves forward when I depress the throttle. This behavior is going on for years now. I'm not sure if it used to do it since I have bought the car.
• 1st gear got stuck once again today. I turned off the engine and with the clutch depressed I easily put the car in neutral. With the engine on though it was difficult, if not impossible, to disengage the 1st gear.

Any thoughts about these 2 issues?



For #1. Sounds like it is a shift rod type of shift lever. There will be two actual rods, one at the bottom of the shift lever that does the actual shifting, and a second rod attached to the transmission that goes to the pivot point of the shifter. You have worn bushings on the pivot point rod.

#2 is just a worn clutch not able to fully disengage.

 

[inquirer]

Originally Posted By: mightymousetech
Originally Posted By: inquirer
A few points related to the transmission issues:

• The gear stick moves when in 5th. It goes back when I lift my foot from the throttle and moves forward when I depress the throttle. This behavior is going on for years now. I'm not sure if it used to do it since I have bought the car.
• 1st gear got stuck once again today. I turned off the engine and with the clutch depressed I easily put the car in neutral. With the engine on though it was difficult, if not impossible, to disengage the 1st gear.

Any thoughts about these 2 issues?



For #1. Sounds like it is a shift rod type of shift lever. There will be two actual rods, one at the bottom of the shift lever that does the actual shifting, and a second rod attached to the transmission that goes to the pivot point of the shifter. You have worn bushings on the pivot point rod.

#2 is just a worn clutch not able to fully disengage.


1. Are you sure? I read elsewhere that the movement is caused by problems inside the gearbox. If it was cause by the bushings wouldn't all gears jump around? For example:
http://www.vauxhallownersnetwork.co.uk/index.php?threads/gearstick-movement.439118/
or
http://www.rav4world.com/forums/99-4-3-m...tle-pushed.html

2. Worn clutch? You mean either release bearing or pressure plate?

 

[inquirer]

Originally Posted By: WyrTwister
Sad to say , but it sounds like you might consider pricing a tranny rebuild or a salvage yart tranny . Or start pricing replacing the car .


I guess I have to wait and see. The noise goes away without intervention. So I'm not really sure what the right diagnosis is.

 

[Trav]

The stick moving in 5th gear is normal for some manual transmissions. You may have bent pressure plate fingers where some of the fingers so the clutch do not totally disengage.
You need to take it apart, all this guessing isn't helping much as it has to come out anyway. I would do it sooner than later, if there is nothing wrong inside the transmission now there could be in short order running it like this.

 

[inquirer]

Originally Posted By: Trav
The stick moving in 5th gear is normal for some manual transmissions. You may have bent pressure plate fingers where some of the fingers so the clutch do not totally disengage.
You need to take it apart, all this guessing isn't helping much as it has to come out anyway. I would do it sooner than later, if there is nothing wrong inside the transmission now there could be in short order running it like this.


I'm not sure if there really is a problem with it.

If the clutch had issues wouldn't they be permanent? The 1st gear has stuck only 3 - 4 times within a period of lets say the same number of months.
The 5th gear has this behavior for a couple of years, if not since I bought the car. I need to investigate if other cars have the same behavior, if it is normal for some models.
The noise happened only twice and disappeared. It was relatively loud, but again a damaged gear would be permanently noisy.

Taking apart the transaxle would require a few hundred of Euros I guess, so I need to be sure that taking it apart will have results.

 

[WyrTwister]

If you can DIY it , may not be too bad .

I have gotten too old , fat and stiff to tackle a tranny .

Best of luck .

 

[inquirer]

Originally Posted By: WyrTwister
If you can DIY it , may not be too bad .

I have gotten too old , fat and stiff to tackle a tranny .

Best of luck .


I can't do it myself. I don't have the tools, I don't have adequate space, I don't have the experience.
Personally, I don't think that it is something urgent and I can adopt a wait and see approach. I hope I'm not wrong.

 

[inquirer]

I found out what the problem was. I got the car to a garage and they opened the transaxle.

It was a spacer that had started to wear out (both sides) and the input axle was able to move. That's what caused the gearstick jump back and forth while in 5th and that's what caused the noise to come and go. Thankfully no other parts had visible damage!

Just a few points - questions:

1. I got machined a new spacer at a machine shop. According to the guy the original spacer hadn't gone through a quenching process, but he quenched the one he machined. Probably the new spacer will be stronger, but I hope that does not mean that it will make other parts to wear out.
2. The guys in the garage used a small amount of grease in order to keep the magnet sticked in place inside the transaxle, while closing the case. Would a few grams of grease alter the properties of the gear oil?
3. I also got the clutch set changed, because the disc was almost worn out. The clutch makes a clicking noise only when the engine is turned on, that can be heard while releasing the clutch pedal with the car in neutral. The quicker the pedal gets released, the louder the sound. This noise can be heard at the same point where the car starts to roll when in gear. Maybe it also happens when changing gears while driving, but it's not audible in that case. Is that normal or not?

Thanks!