I have som pretty loud wining from my tranny. I am no expert but I imagine this being the input bearing wining. When the clutch is pressed I have no noise, but lift of the pedal and I have noise. Some people say these boxes are noisy but this one is so noisy it takes away the joy of driving the car.
I have rebuilt engines but gearboxes scare me. Maybe this fear is unfounded. Just feel like there is so many things that could go wrong taking all those gears and moving parts apart . Should I rebuild my gearbox, or should I try to find a newer one from a Lada? From what I hear they should be a direkt fit. Maybe not for the coupe though? I have a coupe and I seem to remember there is a differens. Either way I will probably switch 5th gear for nicer highway cruising.
The noise you describe sounds more like a release bearing problem. Likely it is set against the pressure plate and not a hair off it. Try adjusting the clutch cable before deciding on a transmission.
The different 5th gear is not a direct swap or even close.
Andy Phillips Vick Auto - Technician, Performance Engine Builder & PFI Developer (with ITBs) http://www.vickauto.com
Stock parts or Performance parts we've got what you need.
Andy's advice is sound, and a few questions from me: Does the transmission whine when the car is in neutral and the clutch is released, or does it whine only when driving? Does it whine in all gears, or just some, and is the whine the same (loudness, pitch) in the different gears?
It whines in neutral with clutch released. When I press down the clutch the whine goes away completely. So it only whines when the gearbox is engaged. It is about the same in all gears except 4th gear which is quiet. 5th gear at 55+ is the worst!
My 72 124 also made the "Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa" sound when in neutral sitting at a traffic light. It was fairly pronounced, to the point I would ride the clutch to make it go away. Transmission had 75K miles on it and a balky 2nd gear that didn't like to stay put. I was on the fence about rebuilding the original or getting a Polski unit. In the end, I thought I'd rather have the taller 5th gear in the new Polski, so I went that route.
Installation was straight forward but I did note that the emissions pigtail on top of my original tranny was blocked off on the new one. My electrovalve no longer energizes between shifts. (If it ever worked at all.) The taller 5th gear made highway cruising a little more pleasant. Not a huge difference, but I could tell at 70mph, the rpm's were a little lower..... Sadly, that noise in neutral that used to make me crazy in the original transmission is also present in the new unit. Not as bad, but still much louder than I expected with a new transmission, pressure plate, clutch disc and bearings. (I still have the old tranny incase I ever want to go back to the original.)
I've got 2 seasons on this car totaling ~ 1,600 miles or so. After the 1st summer, I also replaced my pumpkin with a new unit with a taller ratio. That made a significant difference. I notice a little less acceleration off the line but at 70-75mph, I can now cruise all day. Highway trips that would start wearing on me after 90 minutes are no longer an issue. Might not be as big a benefit on a 2 liter car, but on a 1,600cc that sees mostly weekend country road and 2 lane highway trips, it's pretty good. -Steve
Hmmm... I agree it could be a bad clutch throwout bearing, except for the fact that the transmission doesn't whine in 4th gear. 4th gear is a direct drive, meaning that the input to the transmission is directly coupled to the output in a 1:1 ratio, and the layshaft does not have any load on it.
Let me explain a bit, with the caveat that I'm relying on memory here. The Fiat transmission (and many manual transmissions) has four shafts: an input shaft, a mainshaft, a layshaft, and an output shaft. Power comes into the transmission from the input shaft which is connected through gears to the layshaft. When you're in 4th, the input shaft is directly connected to the main shaft and to the output shaft. When you're in other gears, the layshaft carries the load and power from the input shaft is connected to the main shaft and output shaft through the appropriate gears between layshaft and mainshaft for the particular gear ratio desired.
In 4th gear, the layshaft has no real load on it, although it is spinning. In all other gears, the layshaft is under load. So, based on what you've described, it could be a bad layshaft bearing. Other possibilities are that the layshaft is not properly aligned with respect to the mainshaft, and if gears are not meshing correctly, you get a whine. Almost a siren sound (don't ask me how I found this out....)
If you can have a good transmission shop take a look (listen) to it, they might recognize right away what the issue is. That would be my suggestion. Oh, and one other thing to check: make sure your transmission has sufficient oil of the right type.
So, no easy answer. Guess the best option is to have someone look at it.
As for fluid, there wasn't thst many options for GL1 non-ep here in sweden. I went with castrol classic sae90 non-ep. Not how the tranny sounded before as I basicaly drove it home after buying it this winter an then changed all the fluids.
The transmission oil could be part of your problem, but if you ask 5 people for what the best oil to use for Fiat manual transmissions, you'll get 8 different answers. Fiat recommended GL-1, non EP, and apparently a 90 weight oil. I don't know if this is the same 90 weight as your Castrol SAE 90, and I recall that engine oil designations are different than transmission oil designations. You can still get GL-1, but you might have to order it online.
GL-1,2,3,4,5 and GL-6 are American Petroleum Institute (API) designations, with the higher number generally being able to withstand harsher operating conditions (pressure, temp, shear force, etc.). EP stands for Extreme Pressure. The problem is, GL-1,2,3 and 6 are "inactive" designations, which is why you can't easily find it. GL-4 and GL-5 are still active.
I've heard of people using 20W-50 oil, single viscosity oil, GM synchromesh oils, and synthetic oils. You probably don't want to put synthetic oil in your transmission as this tends to create leaks with the old seals. I'm not recommending any of these, just mentioning it.
However, you might try another gear oil and see if you have the same whine (or even if it is somewhat better), before taking the transmission to a shop. You could try a modern GL-4 or GL-5, and EP is probably OK for testing purposes.
. Should I rebuild my gearbox, or should I try to find a newer one from a Lada? From what I hear they should be a direkt fit. Maybe not for the coupe though? I have a coupe and I seem to remember there is a differens. Either way I will probably switch 5th gear for nicer highway cruising.
