welding, if done right, will not cause a problem i don't think. Just if you do it too fast. But if you take your time, make spot welds rather than a solid straight weld, and let the metal cool down as you go work so it won't warp, then it should come out OK..

 

well the only reason i would not have suspected the ISB is because if the ISB were bad, then wouldn't the pitch follow RPM (input) rather than vehicle speed (output)? i will try it in neutral today to see if it makes the same nosie.

In either event how long can i safely drive the car while it whines like that? Until mid-April at least? And would either of those problems affect the feel of the shifter in any way, particularly how smooth or roughly it locks into each gear?

 

Ok, so the whine doesn't correspond with rpm's going up throughout the gear you are in att? (I couldn't see what you were doing gear wise in the audio vids)



A bad isb can last for a long time, my first(original) trans lasted through 50k of whine before finally dying.

 

Similar experiences, often sticky noises wont kill. Keep it clean = cooling ok.

 

ya, the RPM doesn't explicitly affect the pitch of the whine... indirectly b/c of course rpm fluctuation causes speed fluctuation... but the whine pitches up in 1st, then on the 1-2 the whine picks up in pitch where it left off in 1st and keeps climbing more. by 3rd gear it's too high pitched to hear, and in 4th, the other "scream" occurs. Maybe due to mainshaft/layshaft arrangement of which gears sync with which shaft... dunno. Anyhow, i couldn't hear it in neutral b/c i was stupid and rolled the car in neutral w/ the engine on. Meaning that since the whine is louder under acceleration, the car wasn't accelerating hard enough in neutral for the whine to be heard over the engine. But if it ain't the ISB (since it's output related not input related) what's your next best guess? mainshaft bearing?

sticky = stickshift = manual transmission? just makin' sure.

 

Sounds like a bad isb to me..Be reminded this is a pretty common problem with these trannies, my isb is so far gone now it's starting to lock me out of 1st gear intermittently .

 

if it's the isb it will make noise when the car is parked running in N with the clutch out.

 

so the isb's whine would follow the speed of the output? kickback vibrations from the maingears passed back through the shaft and rattling the bearing, causing the pitch to be output-speed dependant. Not trying to argue just tryin' to figure out how an input shaft bearing's sound depends on output speed. I still can't say for sure anything until that bracket thing is switched, which i can't do until i put the front mount back in the parts car so i can safely remove the rear mount

 

I dunno dude, from what i hear in the video, along with your explanation of what the car is doing, it sounds like a bad isb to me.

If i was there in person, i could tell you within 30 seconds if it is indeed a bad isb(ya know, the internet thang)

 

can you be here tomorrow around 6pm? seriously tho i may just run over to your side place someday soon.. since i'm doing my clutch in early-mid april maybe sometime around then? oh wait you work weekends and i work weekdays. uhhhh. crap? besides that's $100 in gas roundtrip

 

I accept paypal for gas monies..

 

can't you just ship your ears here for $10 w/ USPS next-day Priority Mail??

meh, $100 isn't worth it just for you to listen to "a sound". If i needed help installing the clutch or something that i knew was kinda beyond my ability i may think differently of the $100 (can't buy you a beer, i'm not 21 yet) but not for 30 seconds, yaknow..

 

Meh, you need to learn all this ish yourself anyway

Good luck mang..

 

Question?

Is the exhaust loud on your car?

if not, you should be able to hear the isb grind in neutral/w the clutch pedal out..

tip: push the clutch pedal in-n-out while listening carefully for the whine/grind.

 

ps pump whines and i have 2 broken studs. if i push the clutch and slowly release i can hear the PP engaging the clutch/input shaft but it's not really very loud at all. not rumbly or anything. maybe next time i'll ducktape my camera into the engine bay. and tether it around something so it won't fall. hey that's a good idea. lemme find a method to NOT run over my camera or lose it on the street

 

http://s164.photobucket.com/albums/u...afilter=videos
did it. camera was tucked under the canister vapor line on the trans casing, and tethered around the N/R switch harness in case it dislodged.

listen to the first 3, all of them have the caption "tranny whine".
in the first video, 20 seconds or so in you can hear me pushing and releasing the clutch. if the ISB is this quiet when the camera is physically touching the trans case, then it can't possibly be bad. Can't even hear it from inside the car unless you listen REALLY REALLY hard.

most shift points are about the same, out between 2500 and 3000. You hear the whine go way higher in 2nd, and if anything i held 1st longer than 2nd, just as proof that the pitch picks up in 2nd and climbs further. now, it switches sounds in 3 and 4 (never hit 5th in the soundclips), i assume b/c 1&2 sync on the input shaft and 3, 4, and 5 sync on the mainshaft. anyhow, the whine does not change pitch when in late vid2 or somewhere in vid3 i was shifting quickly between 3rd and 4th... same speed held same pitch, even tho rpm was like 1800 vs 2300... dunno if you can pick it out well enough to know what i was doing there.

my apologies for my stupidly noisy popcharger...

 

its alot louder than my 5-speed. except if that was reverse in the beginning. mine is that loud. and definitely was with car speed, not engine speed, like an isb would be

 

are you factory 5spd or swapped from a/t? if so it may still be the diff bearings being squeeqed from the carrier bracket's slightly-off angle from the m/t part's measurements. the diff should basically float free but i suspect that the pass side axle, being half-rigid in nature, could be pushing the bearings in some direction that they shouldn't be going.

in which case... on a scale of 1-10 how urgent is it that i fix the whine if it's the diff bearings (options being ASAP or when i do my ver'nice Stage1 clutch install in mid april?)

oh and i forgot to mention in the last 30seconds or so of video 1, i shut the engine off and coasted clutch-in in 2nd so the gears were still spinning. you hear me re-fire it right there at the end.

 

yep just sounds like the gears if thats how loud it is under your hood, I would say just make sure it's full of gear lube and get the bracket swapped.

 

so i made a good call in noting that 1 and 2 are on the IS and 3-5 are on the MS, hence the different sound in the upper gears? yeah i broke my 1/2 drive ratchet but i got a new one now so i'll recheck the fluid level. If it's been a half quart low would it be that much louder? on the same token would i have incurred a lot of damage internally i've driven it about 100 miles since the swap with a slightly low fluid level or should i just fill her up, quit my *****ing, and put it out of mind? obviously a/ts are heavily sensitive to low fluid levels but since m/t is mechanical it's a bit more resilient i'd think.

 

A pint low isn't that big of deal at all it might quite down a little since the level will cover the bearings a bit more but more then likely not much. When you can hear the bearings make noise when you are in N and the clutch is out then get ready to replace the isb, and if the gear lube starts to get low you will hear it right after you start it when it's been sitting for awhile, before the lube is moved around and pushed into the bearing. Its not the best for them to be started and let warm up for long times with the clutch out.

 

well the isb is still quiet.. you could only hear it b'c the camera was strapped directly to the tranny.. kindof like a stethoscope. but from inside the car i can't really hear the ISB when getting on/off the clutch in neutral. i can hear the trans internals whirring softly as a sort of ambient noise, but it's really really quiet. quieter than the HVAC system on speed setting 1.

as for your last sentence, you're saying it's best to drive the car when it's part-warm and really get the fluid circulated in the tranny rather than letting it fully warm up in N?

 

If you have a bad bearing its going to be the same if the fluid is hot or cold. And I doubt theres an issue with the level since its a fresh install that isn't gushing/leaking fluid.

I can hear my ISB from in the car at idle. Its a hollow grinding noise. I bet your tranny is OK, and will be for 30K+. My ISB was bad when i put the tranny in 25K miles ago. I didnt know it then but I heard the noise back then so, Id say uou have at least that left in yours. Drive it and get the kinks worked out and then see if it makes any noise.

~Alex

 

Yea for the most part for where you are you only have to let it warm up for a few min if that (unless it's a really cold day like what 30 deg F) when I was in MN I would sit in the car and hold the clutch in most of the time. It will shift stiffer on cold days till it gets warmed up.

So you have a idea of time frame from where you can hear the bearing to when it NEEDS to be done I could hear the 85's when I bought it and I have a while yet it's just a soft wheeeeeerrrrrrrrrring still. In my 87 it was the same for a long time (like me moving to Milwaukee and back to MN) then it got worse (i was driving it hard and that doesn't help) and started locking me out of gears (the plastic parts jammed in the forks).

 

I have 40K on mine since it started making the sound. I'll probably replace it when I get around to replacing the original clutch (160K miles). It may have been making the noise earlier, but the car had broken manifold studs and a screaming PS pump when I first got it.

 

well an ISB, like any ball bearing will make some noise. like the wheels on rollerblades. but mine is no louder and can only be heard from inside the car when you are focusing all your listening attention into trying to hear it even at idle... otherwise you can't hear it. so i'd safely say my ISB is on OK shape. That's why i'm focusing on the fluid level and axle bracket, due to my bearing whine being an output thing not an input thing. Not that i want to dig into my tranny and go swapping out a ton of bearings but if the fluid and bracket don't fix it, i may have to take it apart and find which bearings have the most freeplay.

 

If you're going to keep the car for awhile and you're up to your elbows in tranny parts my vote is to replace ALL the bearings AND the synchros. You're there, you've got it apart, do it right the first time. I haven't heard that Max synchros are suspect, but (normally) synchros aren't that expensive and they are a big wear item.

Parts are cheap. Time isn't.

 

...unbearable...he listens like no other...

 

unless the bearings are massively shot on my current tranny then i'm going to keep one eye open for a VE5 tranny and rebuild it then put it in. I don't know if i can afford the downtime of performing a full rebuild on my current tranny unless i had a spare car to drive in the event it took longer than expected. The parts car was going to have my a/t but the a/t died so now i can't do that. i was going to wire a few switches and run the solenoids manually instead of swapping in the TCU harness to the parts car, but that won't work now anyways. So the parts car is indefinitely undriveable.

 

That would be a task that FSM wont carry over ... where that info would come?

I have leds for each TCU output, trying to figure out 'wassup solenoides'. Two yrs watchin em, not one bit closer...

 

A thought on a rebuild: the only differences that I noticed between the RS5F50A tranny and the RS5F50V is the differential, now if it's a R200 or a R180 differential it might be possible to swap one out of a pathfinder, 300zx, 200sx (rwd) or hard body. From what I've read up on the rear in a pathfinder and hard body is a R200 the front is a R180 the 300zx is a R200 and the 200sx is R180 as is the 240's I think. You would have to change the the ring gear and add the speed sensor gear (have to put a new one on during the rebuild anyways).

 

1st ab
2nd b
3rd -
O/D a

 

how are RWD diff guts supposed to fit into a FWD transaxle case?

fluid level is pretty much OK. tho looking into the tranny it is easy to see that the gears extend well upward of the fluid level. and i think even the bearings on the upper shaft are well above the fluid level that the tranny is supposed to have.

 

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=246045&page=2

Big_E-Dog has a pic of what the guts of our trannys


http://www.srownersclub.com/Merchant...ory_Code=TOMEI

this is the best I could come up with a quick search.

so if the case is about the same size and they are the same length so that the bearings would be in the right place then its just a matter if the ring gear bolts will line up (or could be made to line up)

 

but why go through all the trouble of mixing and matching and praying if i can just get a transmisson designed for a 3rd gen maxima that has VLSD in it from the factory? besides the idea was to have 2 trannys so i could rebuild one while driving on the other, not tearing my only tranny down and modding it internally and meanwhile not having a car.

 

I just mentioned it kind of as a back up plan in case you couldn't get a hold of a VLSD and find a RS5F50A tranny, if it is a diff that Nissan used a lot it would be a simple swap, just bolt on the ring gear and put the new bearings on it (and new speed sensor gear) and it's done.

and I ran across this if you didn't know about it, if it's not already maybe throw it in the stickys
http://www.carbibles.com/transmission_bible.html

 

vernk: remember in your classifieds post when you said you figured the tranny was rebuilt in the past? well, it doesn't seem to shift quite like a rebuilt... but i'm figuring that the reason it had sealant on the case was b/c the ISB was replaced a few thousand miles before you bought it.. mebbe around 180k. now it's got 247k but that's 67k since it may have been replaced, which compared to 180k, it's pretty new-ish. i kept listening for it today and i couldn't hear the input shaft spinning at all with the climate control on setting 2, and it was rather overshadowed by the sound of the climate control at level 1. but sometimes i wonder (i know you guys are going to be like "uh... no" when i say this) if my driving style even warrants the extra money to buy a VLSD trans. reason being, 90% of the time i have insufficient traction it's at 0% throttle. either brake lockup or oversteer under braking or coasting. i spun tires on the parts car just once, and not yet at all on my car. in fact the only time i took my GXE-5 to redline was to see what my top speed in 2nd was.never really snows, and we're in such a drought that the local gov't is sending around engineers to see how many faucets and toilets they can replace with lower flow-rate ones in restaurants and other workplaces. not mandatory yet but if not enough people comply it will be mandatory. meaning weather will rarely cause me to lose grip. If i do the track event at Maxus that's probably the last time my maxima will be on a racetrack anyways, and no matter what my plans i wouldn't have a VLSD trans installed until fall or winter anyways. so i may just read up on every thread i can find about rebuilding a tranny for syncs and bearings, and just tackle it on my current tranny, over a weekend.

tho i am perplexed by one thing. ever since the swap, my dead-cold idle is absolute GARBAGE. Like it'll dip and dive anywhere it wants to, arhythmically, anywhere between 400rpm and 1600rpm. If i rev it to 2500rpm i can still feel it missing totally randomly. happens with clutch in or out. any other swappers have this problem? It's not a huge issue.. idle is butter-smooth once warm. i was careful to reconnect everything i disconnected.

 

...this what I also thought. But no. You cannot control it like that... The box has semi states not represented by the solenoids. Hydraulics do lots work behind.

--->TPS
it controls when cold/open loop. After warmup, TPS is not used as loop is closed = instead real Feedback from O2.

 

using switches for the solenoids wasn't intended to work well... just enough to move the car up and down the street. didn't car if it ran weird line pressure or anything.

and about the tps which circuit are you referring to? hard or variable?

 

Tested the 2 maximas with TCU disconnected: R/D -Gears do engage... I guess this is the safemode? ...and drivable? Didnt test-drive, I want to keep my dailydrive, the other hasn got insurance -orR-, so no testing with it.

My bet is the potentiometer. Its 5min to tst both...