legacycentral bbs

I have a pretty loud gear whine on my trans in 1st and 2nd. synth gear oil 75w90, as recomended by the subaru shop here. The trans shifts great, no grinds even on harder shifts. it has 175k on it. what is usually the cause of this, and does it sound like a pretty big problem?
thanks for any input

Get used to it. It's a Subaru thing. Every MT Subaru I've ever driven does it and I've yet to have a problem or hear anyone else have a problem either...

gear whine is usually caused by slight pitting or wear on the gear faces. sometimes a bearing that is getting tired can whine also. Rarely does this lead to serious problems

btw my tranny does not whine

well as long as it is not serious, I guess I can live with it. thanks for the replies

1st gear whines in my car like it's a beefy helical gear.

Not sure why, but it's pretty loud.

Of course, the rest of the car is pretty loud too, so take that at face.

Reverse is the only gear that whines in mine.

Steve

in my FWD reverse was really loud.

1 and 2 are a bit noisy in my SS.

Mine whines on deceleration in all gears but really noticable in second.

greg donovan wrote:in my FWD reverse was really loud.

1 and 2 are a bit noisy in my SS.

Reverse is straight cut in almost all manual transmissions.

It's to difficult for me to pinpoint noises in my car. All of the stiff mounts make it really hard to isolate engine movement noise from tranny noise, from everything else. My car has more NVH than any other car I've ever driven... and I love it

Exactly the same symptoms in my rs legacy. Whines in 1st and second. And when I first start it when its cold its really rattly like a loose baffle in the exhaust but its in the box. goes away when i put foot on clutch.
Last night was driving along in 5th, started viabrating then it went. Nothing. like it was in neutral. So kept going in 4th. about 20 mins later it went. same again in 3rd and i finally got home in second.
Any suggestions.
Sounds really bad now when in neutral.
Still have 1st 2nd and reverse

If it whines with the clutch out in neutral, but goes away when you depress the clutch, that usually means 1st or 2nd is gone.

Here's a basic run down of what's going on under the shifter.

While stopped, in neutral, with your foot off the clutch, the input shaft is spinning. 1st and 2nd gear are also spinning (as 1st and 2nd gear are one peice on the input shaft). So noise while stopped in neutral, usually it's related to 1st or 2nd gear (generally 2nd). When the car is not moving, 3rd, 4th, and 5th gear are not spinning.

While the car IS moving, in neutral, foot off the clutch, EVERY gear is spinning (except reverse. Revers only spins when you are IN reverse).

While you are stopped, and the clutch is IN, the input shaft is still slightly spinning (the flywheel and pressure plate are circling the clutch at 700RPM, so it drags the clutch around slightly).

While moving and the clutch is OUT, Every gear is spinning. 3,4,5 are all spinning the speed of the wheels. 1st and 2nd are spinning the speed of the engine.

A loose baffle sound, sounds like a tooth chipped off and is bouncing around the case. Killing 5th could have done 2 things. Since 5th gear is actually outside the tranny case, no metal shavings could have gotten into it. Sometimes, what can happen, is with a tranny that's really beaten on with a STIFF clutch, you can shock 5th on flat-shifts and totally knacker it up. It happens a LOT on dogboxes, and as I found out the other day, it also happens in synchro boxes. It's really unlikely that you sheared all the engagement teeth off of 5th.

4th, could have sheared all teeth off of 4th. That's most likely. Same for 3rd. Drive it a little longer, and 1st and 2nd WILL go. Reverse rarely goes. Reverse is fairly strong.

So what do I predict your transmission looks like right now?

Well, probably like the following. I bet you have teeth lining the walls of the tranny, waiting to jump into other gears or your ring-and-pinion. I bet 5th has just been beaten to hell and is WAY knackered. 4th is likely gone at least 50% of the teeth on both shafts are toast. 3rd is likely almost exactly the same. 1st and 2nd will be heavily scored and gouged.

My suggestion: New tranny. No way around it. You could fix your tranny, or you could bolt your center diff to a WRX tranny and call it a day.

Ha. doesnt sound good. cheers for that, big help. have a mate with another tranny in bits so hopefully we will find enogh bits to get it sorted.

Mine wines LOUDLY in decelleration, i know some brand new wrx tranny got replaced on warranty because the ring gear on the diff was a bit out of tolerance from the factory. They said it was no cause to worrie but they would replace the tranny upon request.