The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop growling from xmisssion or clutch...

got a growling, grinding at speed with clutch engaged, in top gear, but goes away with clutch pedal in and/or in outta gear. already replaced ujoint to fix a constant vibration earlier, but this seems to me like its gotta either be clutch or transmission. i don't know nuthin about either. what can i do to narrow it down?
help.

sounds like bearing on input shaft.
pull the drain plug and look for metal flake....

fatweed, if so, and that sure sounds plausible, are we talking transmission rebuild or is there something less drastic?

if its just the input shaft bearing... ya dont need to do everything else..?? basically a transmission rebuild is bearings and seal is all anyway..??? if it shifts fine..and doesnt jump outta gear... then maybe all you need is just the one bearing... but if you can get the whole bearing kit for not too much then ya might as well replace them all while ur at it....??? take a close look at the transmission grease...it will tell you some clues... if its full of metal..then it means theres alot of metal gone...and also alot of metal run through it will wear everything.. kinda like runnin sand through it... if the transmission was ever run low on grease its usually the input...or output shaft bearing that goes first as they dont run in oil like the lower bearings doo....typically speaking tho.. most people replace bearings that arent bad "Quote" "while their in there" that dont mean they are bad....and old four speed or three speed really isnt that hard to rebuild.....and not that expensive either... if youve got to replace gears like on an old sm420 (4 speed) ,,they are hard to find..... but bearings arent..and if its not 4 wheel drive..its not that hard or time consuming either.. uhhhhhhhhh and while ya got it out..LOL..its time to maybe do clutch and throwout bearing "while ur in there" LOL....But depending on how bad the noise is... it might run a long time the way it is???? if it was clutch or throwout bearing it would make noise while ya stepped on it....and truthfully there isnt much noise a clutch can make unless the lining is gone......steppin on the clutch tho stops the input shaft from turning or will if its in gear...in nuetral stepping on the clutch it may let the input shaft coast tho or turn some because of friction on the pilot bearing or bushing on the input shaft...the other thing it might be is the pocket bearing on the input shaft. if the noise is constant going down the road in high gear. then its eitehr input or output bearing... the pocket bearings dont turn in hi gear....because the shaft is locked straight through...if it makes noise in nuetral then it could be input shaft or pocket bearing... because output shaft doesnt turn if your standing still... if you look at a breakdown of a standard transmission..its pretty easy to diagnose a noise by whats turning and what isnt..or whats driving or being driven..... ya know..????

thanks fatweed. a wealth of info for me to digest. guess i gotta get my hands dirty now and figure out which it is. yes, i try things that i know something about, like electrical. i almost rewired my truck patching the wiring and getting it to work electrically, but i'm not familiar with transmissions at all. thanks again
tony

Sounds like the throwout bearing to me.

vaughn, would the TO bearing make a vibration with the clutch out and the transmission in neutral coasting at speed? :-)

It may, if the the throwout bearing is adjusted so that it is resting on the clutch fingers.

Not sure if your model has an access cover that you can take off, but if you can reach in and spin the face of the throwout bearing and it is rough - that is your problem (or one of them).

The long and the short of it is that the trans has to come out to fix it - if it is the throwout bearing or the input shaft bearing.