Transmission whine
 

Got about 100K on it. I took it to the dealer and they said it was a broken pinion shaft? I have an idea of what that is but does it mean I need a new tranny? :confused:

Do you have the 100K warranty ?

There may be a pinion shaft for the front diff, but normally the pinion is in the read diff, ring and pinion.

I posted a photo of mine in the long term, how are they holding up thread in the sticky at the top of this forum last week.

http://legacygt.com/forums/showthrea...27680p110.html

check post 3286

Don't have the warranty unfortunately. Thanks for the post/pic. Rear diffs definitey aren't as pricey as a whole new transmission so if i could get away with that it'd be great. Could you describe the whine you were hearing? Mine is present even when I'm neutral, moving of course.

What are symptoms of the whine? On-throttle only whine that goes away when you lift off the accelerator? A whine in any gear at 35+ mph? I had a whirring noise when in neutral and coasting at low speed (inaudible at speed). Eventually the whine turned into a marble-in-can sound.

Do a fluid change first (see what comes out).

Does it sound like this (start around 14 seconds)?

If so, it's most likely the center differential transfer driven gear bearings. $133 or so in parts cost to replace the 4 in the center differential case extension. The good news is (if you've got time and tools) that you can DIY this job in a weekend. You will need a shop press and a set of punches for roll pin removal (I used a set from Lowe's).

Here's the NASIOC thread on the issue.

If you can still drive the car, have someone sit in the back seat and see if the noise is in the rear or the front.

When my rear diff went, I swore the whine was coming from the tranny. The noise travels up the driveshaft to the tranny.

I pulled the tranny and had it opened up to find nothing wrong that would cause that noise. My buddy said pull the rear diff, it must be bad.

If you have a broken pinion shaft, the car would not move.

I snagged this pic from google of the front pinion shaft:

http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/831407.jpg

(Ignore that the pinion is reversed in this pic. This was for a VW Vanagon install, which required a custom reversed drive setup)

If that shaft breaks, then the whole trans will destroy itself.

In all my years with modified Subaru's, I've never seen anyone break the pinion shaft. I've seen LOTS of broken pinion gears, but never a broken pinion shaft.

More then likely the splines on the end of the shaft are what is broken, or worn off caused by something else.

Drag racing one day with the Honda after the 7th launch that day, we stripped the teeth off the pinon and ring gear. The driver was trying something different on the launch.

Back in the day about 1980 I had the ring gear on my 340 Duster break off 3 teeth from the ring gear. I went to the local junk yard paid $125 for used pumkin for the 8 3/4 rear end.

Yeah, it sounds similar to that. No hint of a "marble in can" sound yet. But it's most present when I'm coasting in neutral because there's no exhaust to cover it up. the only time it's not present is when the car is stationary and when im coasting in gear. And I'll have the time to pull the diff off and check it out once I'm done with finals (I'm in college.)

That's a good idea. But I can't drive the car unfortunately. The clutch recently went out too. Don't think its a related issue since I drove with the whining noise for more than a year without any clutch issues and it's due for a new clutch anyways (about 100K on it).

Would there be any immediate grinding with worn splines/broken gears? I can't hear any noticeable grinding. Only the whine.

Hey, I can't open the link for the sound.......I am curious because I am getting a new noise in conjunction with the normal gear whine I alway had around 40-45 mph. It sounds like a diff noise but it's coming from the trans area. I'd be curious to listen to that link. Right now I am just waiting for something to fail then I will know where the noise is from. :lol: I did pull some side/spider gear pieces off my rear diff drain plug magnet about 2 months ago.

Sorry about the link. I think it's something with the forum using a link handler.

Can you try the following using copy + paste and adding https:// in the front?

docs.google.com/open?id=0B5ADKfDhsM1-MmQyNzQwNmUtMzk3My00NTY1LThhNDEtYmNmNzQzMDU5YmI2&a mp;authkey=CP_Rgt4C

Which splines? The splines on the LH side in that pic I posted? Or the pinion teeth?

It's not possible to strip the splines on the LH side in that pic. You'd break the center diff LONG before that happened.

It's possible to ruin the pinion teeth, though. The most common cause is by people who think they are supposed to remove the front diff cap to replace the axle seal, then reassembling without properly setting lash. The second most common cause is the wrong fluid being used.

What fluid were you using? If you were using a GL-4, or something like Uncle Scotty's Cocktail (which includes Synchromesh), then there is a good possibility that you've destroyed the ring and pinion. GL-4 fluids can't handle the shear loads seen in a high offset hypoid gearset. It can also happen if you ran a GL-5 fluid, but failed to change it at appropriate intervals. You get lots of whining as the pinion and ring gear wear themselves to knife-edges before completely shearing the teeth off of the pinion. I've actually got a scar on my right index finger from where I got cut on a pinion gear that came out of a transmission running the US Cocktail.

Pinon teeth, you should know that...lol

Side spider gear pieces, I've seen them in the oil.

You may want to do a web search for a used r160 rear diff.

Or rebuild yours before it goes. I should have kept my old one and had it rebuilt, like my tranny guy told me...after I dumped it.