I had a hard time trying to figure out how I would describe the sound 'cuz it's not clicking or buzzing or grinding. It's not the usual gear whine. But "whirring" seems to fit. The car has 202,000 miles and is running great. But just in the last couple weeks the tranny started whirring. It's a cable actuated manual. The noise goes away when I disengage the clutch. The clutch has about 40,000 on it and works well. I have used synthetic gear oil for a couple of years and the tranny shifts well. I'm stumped. Any clues?

Sounds like it isn't engaging or disengaging properly. Have the cable adjustment checked and also check the throw-out bearing. If you didn't do the clutch yourself, the person who did it might have tried to save a few bucks and left your old bearing in place.

 

 

Hope this helps

Have you checked the tranny fluid level? (Not sure, is there tranny fluid for manual? Stupid me, instead of giving hints, I'm just asking more questions!)

Check the fluid level in the T-case. It shares duty with the trany on those models. (they both use gear lube and share the same case)Hope this helps

Sounds like a throwout bearing to me

It's the main bearings:

 

If the sound goes away when you press the clutch down, it's the gearbox. A bad throwout bearing would only be noisy while the clutch pedal is down.

Start by draing the MT oil, and take note of the size of the metal shavings in it. You can run a gearbox with bad bearings for a long time, but you should replace the oil often to stop the shavings ruining your cogs.

 

A rebuild is expensive...

Sounds like a throwout bearing to me

Yep, that is my vote also.

Sorry to be late replying, I was gone for a couple days. CSR, the clutch is adjusted properly and is engaging just fine. Jcniest5 and CSR, my t-case/tranny oil is at optimum level (the last change was about 6 months ago). I'm thinking it's the sound of a bearing going out, but I know nothing about transmissions. I always thought that throwout bearings were only on hydraulic clutches. Educate me as to what that is and how much it might be to replace. But if it's a tranny main bearing, I'll probably just live with it until it becomes really bad before I have the tranny rebuilt. Right now the noise isn't very loud at all.

HELLO??

 

rweddy, aksor:

 

Throw-out bearings only get noisy under stress, like when the clutch pedal is pressed down. If the noise goes away under this condition, there is nothing wrong with the throw-out.

 

 

 

It's bearings, and you can keep driving. Once the whirr starts to get punctuated by irregular rattle-type sounds, you'll need to look at rebuliding.

I miss read the orginal post, I though he said the noise when away when the clutch was dis-engaged.

 

So the noise is there when the clutch is not engaged?

Noise is there when clutch is engaged: Pedal up, driving under power.

 

If I push the clutch pedal in and coast, the noise goes away.

Bump.

Setright, I've actually wanted to PM you about this main bearing issue you keep bringing up. I thought you said it affected 1990MY's only, Michael's is a 93?

 

I tried to come up with a way to prove that it's something else besides main bearings, but alas I can't. If the clutch cable is in adjustment, the throwout bearing is not in contact with the clutch plate and is sitting there motionless. If the clutch were to be out of adjustment, the throwout bearing could be in constant contact with the clutch plate, but I can tell you firsthand that it doesn't make any whining sounds in this condition. It will either squeak at you or make more of a rattling noise, because the bearing isn't attached very firmly to the clutch fork, it has room to move around a bit unless there's full pressure on it (disengaged).

 

All you can do is change your gear oil like Setright said, and look for little chunks of metal. If they're practically microscopic, that's not a big deal. If they're a little bigger, then yeah you might be up for a tranny rebuild later...

All you can do is change your gear oil like Setright said, and look for little chunks of metal. If they're practically microscopic, that's not a big deal. If they're a little bigger, then yeah you might be up for a tranny rebuild later...

Good info. Thanks! I'll be curious to see how many more thousands of miles this car will run before it gets worse. It sure has been a reliable vehicle!

Subylvr, the early 1990 models will not last 120k miles before the bearings collapse.

 

A 1993, with 202k miles, and an unknown maintenance record (unknown to me, anyway) can have main bearing problems. Yes?