The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Driveline T5 chatter noise

My drive train has been making a strange chatter noise off and on. Maybe if i post up whatsits doing someone may be able to help me feel better about what i think it is.

It happens when the truck is either hot or cold. SOMETIMES when just depressing the clutch with the trans in neutral it will be fine for a 3 seconds, 10 seconds, 60 seconds, whatever seconds then i get this vibration / chatter noise. I can feel it in the shifter and a bit in the pedal. It goes away when the pedal is released. This has me believing its the clutch fork bearing....but......when the truck is in motion it seems i can get this to happen almost every time but it involves me doing user input on the trans. What i mean by this is if i was in 4th and going to downshift, after depressing the pedal to get out of 4th into neutral all is good but as soon as i put it into 3rd and still have the pedal depressed i will frequently get the chatter. It goes away as soon as i let the pedal back out. For some reason more times than not the act of shifting it into a gear while moving especially downshifting seems to make the chatter until i release the clutch.

Why do you think the user input on the trans would cause this chatter when that should not have anything to do with the fork bearing?

It never happens when up shifting, even if i take my sweet time doing the shift with the clutch press for a long time.

Hmmm... sounds like it only happens when your clutch disc speed is not matched with your flywheel speed? Not sure why it only happens on downshift or neutral.

Could be pilot bushing as well?

Out of curiosity, did you do your own T5 swap? Did you use a trans spacer plate and end up shortening your front bearing retainer as well? When I did mine, at first I did not shorten the tube, but the clearance was so small with the clutch disengaged that I took it all apart and took 1/4" off the tube to avoid any possibility of rubbing. (It doesn't sound like that is your problem though....)

I vote for pilot bushing.

I am thinking its the pilot bushing also now after really listening and recreating it over and over again yesterday. Im going to order another jeep input shaft so when i take it all apart if the shaft is damaged along with the bushing i can just replace it all.

it was the bushing and input shaft. The fit was very loose.