Signs of impending doom for my transmission?

@113k, I think my transmission just started having issues...

 

About a year ago, on this one occasion, I could not put the car in Park. I was driving normal and when went to park and the lever would not fully engage in park. Being able to get it into park by pushing it a little harder than normal it went in and there were no issues whatsoever after that.

 

Last week, the same thing happened once again. Thought nothing of it and all was good until I was driving yesterday on I84E through Hartford.

 

Driving around 50 mph in decent traffic with no actual change in speed/gear, the car felt like it had just hit a wall. Car bogged a little and then after a second or two it picked back up again. I pulled over on the side of the highway and noticed the car was making a funny noise from the torque converter area. I was able to shift through all the gears and in 1 & 2 no problem.

 

When I tried to rev it up a little while in park, the car lurched forward. This also happened when the car was in neutral.

 

The noise is a weird noise, it sounds like marbles rolling in a glass cup.

 

I also noticed that the car made no noise when it was put in Reverse, or while driving in sport mode gear #3.

 

I was able to drive it 60 miles home from Hartford on the highway going 65mph with no issues. Car just made that marbles in the glass cup noise. Noise level raises w/ RPM but is not noticeable in 3rd.

 

 

Time for a new tranny?

 

 

 

 

 

 

So within the past 3 months, my car has had quite the amount of issues.

 

@ 109k on my NA w/ a 4EAT, my big end bearing died.

 

All was good after I replaced the motor with a 55k replacement from an 06 Impreza.

 

@ 110k, 1200 miles after my engine swap, car issues again. Misfire on all 4 cylinders (CEL Codes) and car wouldn't start. All signs pointed to the torque converter.

 

Turned out that the bolts that bolt the flywheel to the torque converter actually snapped - as in the tops of the bolts were missing but the threading was still in the TC. So after pulling the motor again and getting fresh bolts from Subaru, things were great.

Possible issues with the shifting cable not fully engaging/disengaging when going into Part or Neutral? Parking issue sounds like parking pawl woes to me, marbles in a glass also doesn't sound right, could also be coming from the center differential.

New was to describe it! Was trying to drive it onto ramps in my garage and this started to happen:

 

Put in Drive, press gas, engine would rev up, car would not move, then a noise then the car is moving. Happened also while trying to reverse. Car would not engage as the rpms went up then all the sudden there the boom and the car jerked back.

Your transmission is toast, all things considered (check the transmission fluid). How many miles? Trans fluid ever changed?

It's not economical to do a tear down IF a tranny shop doesn't have a simple straight forward go-to fix. It would be cheaper to swap out another used/rebuilt unit since tear-down labor alone will set you back almost that amount.

113k on the tranny. Tranny fluid was changed @ 60k. It was changed again when I did the engine swap @ 109k. When I had to reinstall the torque converter bolts @ 111k, I reused the tranny fluid that I drained out. Put it back in through a filtered funnel. Still looked mint. Just drained the tranny fluid again and it looks mint. No metal shavings or anything of the sort. Will be dropping the pan tomorrow to check for sure.

Not familiar with the type of filtering the 4EAT has set-up, but I know that the 5EAT has a spin-on filter that looks identical to an oil filter. You can access it behind the battery. It may be worth replacing. If your clutchpacks were to have disintegrated, you would see signs in the ATF. Or it could have all ended up in the filter, which is now clogged, which is causing a low line pressure which does not help with gear engagement. I'm not an expert, it could be something very basic, someone here had a similar situation and it turned out their shifter cable was loose and wasn't putting the transmission properly in gears.

2007 4EAT has the same screw type.

 

X

This consistent whirring noise... do you guys think it could be the torque converter maybe losing contact w/ the transmission? As if it wasn't snugly in place?

 

This noise comes from the case right where the TC sits.

 

Checked pan today and found no bit/pieces/metal shavings at all.