Recently sold my "Yellow Beast" Maxima to a guy down the road. I've driven the car for months, daily. He's driven the car for almost a month now. He brought the car to me the other day to help diagnose a problem. I even drove the maxima to make sure he described it accurately....

Details: '92 VE 5sp with swapped in VG 5sp tranny, hubs, and axles. In all forward gears, car performs perfectly. Goes in and out of all gears easily; clutch performs nicely and does not slip.

Problem: In reverse, the car shudders/shakes vigerously. It almost feels like the clutch is seriously slipping, but if that was the case, it would do it in the forward gears too! It will move, barely in reverse. It felt like the whole car was going to fall apart, or at least something would break if I continued in reverse. There is a barely audible whine from the tranny which was there when the car was purchased and unchanged.

Guy stated that they went on a trip and missed the exit. They put the car in reverse and that is when they first noticed it recently. I asked if the car was fully stopped when put in reverse. He said he was almost positive car was completely stopped. Either way, stopped or not, would there not be some telling signs even in the forward gears (especially first since on same gear?) if the tranny was damaged? I'm at a loss and am looking for help in guiding this guy as to the source of the problem. Thanks for your attention!

 

My guess would be the reverse gear in the transmission has some teeth missing....

Maybe matt will chime in and confirm or not...

 

check the engine mounts. i had a car that shook and vibrated in 1st gear and it was a motor mount.

 

lol, "missed an exit and then put the car in reverse". if it is a problem with the tranny, you would want to look at the reverse lever assembly and the little gear that is pushes up to mesh with one of the gears on the input shaft. maybe the bolts that hold the reverse lever down is just loose. or like gmax said, missing teeth. it could also be that your front input shaft bearing is toast and a ball or 2 have fallen out of the bearing so now the shaft is wobbling when in reverse. the reverse gears are lower down towards the bearing so there's more stress being put on it than when it's in forward gears which mesh higher and further away from the bearing.

 

I thought the reverse gear was strait cut? So that would be pretty impressive if he managed to trash that...but what do I know I don't have a 5 speed

 

Dennis: I'll check the mounts, but I don't think that is it. I just polyfilled the front motor mount.
Wayne, guys...my thought too about the gear possibly loosing some teeth. Shaft bearing is something I had not considered. Either way, looks like the tranny is on it's way to the tranny repair man!

 

just asking but why did u do the VG 5spd tranny anyway?????????

 

Decided to replace my VG tranny in my turbo project with beefier VLSD and thicker axles with VE tranny. So, swapped hubs and transmissions between cars.

The transmission in question is the VG tranny on VE engine in car recently sold. The VG tranny I sold with the car was problem free with the exception of what appearently was a minor "whine" typical of main shaft. There were no indications of failure when I drove the car for weeks after the swap. Without actually knowing, I think this guy was rough (or his wife who seems to drive the car alot) on the car. I gave him recommendations as indicated here from the knowledgeable .Org members. I will let you guys know the outcome when he gets it assessed.

Interesting though, I saw him yesterday and he stated that the car is now starting to act funny in forward gears as well, speaking to the bearing issue which was suggested. There is still no noise coming from the tranny to indicate damaged internals (ie. no whining, grinding, etc). Thanks for all the feedback.