Transaxle / Transmission problems?!?

[yotanewb]

So I'm thinking I blew my transmission. Or messed up my transaxle. I'm not really sure, but it seems pretty bad. Here's the story...

I did a bunch of work to the car a couple months ago. Replaced the head gasket, rebuilt the carb, replaced the distributor, and a whole mess of other little projects along the way. After all this work the car ran great, but I started to notice a pretty serious oil leak a couple weeks ago. I tried several times to find the leak, but never could so I just kept filling it up when it got low because I was busy and didn't have time to do a full diagnosis. I never noticed any problems and figured I would just keep doing that until I got a chance to look at it.

Unfortunately, I decided to push it the other day while driving on the freeway. The oil light came on, and I drove another 15 miles or so to my exit before putting more oil in. When I got off the freeway, I noticed the car was making quite a bit of noise, but I hoped it would go away with some oil. While most of the noise went away, I noticed there was still a rattling/grinding noise in certain gears, at certain RPMs. I drove it a little more and the noise only got worse. Mostly showing up in the 1500-1800 RPM range. I decided to drive to Arlington (about an hour drive) because my friend has a shop and it's close to the PicknPull.

But I never made it. After a few minutes of driving I could tell the car was doing much worse. Eventually the car was rattling very loudly in every gear, but was completely silent when I put it in neutral. I messed with it a little bit by shifting back and forth between neutral and 5th to compare sounds. It sounded perfect in neutral, but was ridiculously loud in 5th. Eventually I felt/heard something get stuck and it felt like something broke. I didn't see anything fall off or anything, but there was a definite clunking noise (like that of a loose part) coming from the middle of the car. At this point the car died and I was able to coast up the off ramp and into a gas station. When I tried to start it there was basically no response (just a slight click) and we immediately called a tow truck.

The car now sits in my friend's shop and we're starting to work on it, but I have no idea where to start. I took out the started just to see the flywheel and what not, but didn't find much out. The gears on the starter are a little worn down, but nothing crazy. And it looks like it retracted appropriately. The flywheel looks good as far as I can tell, but I have no idea what it's supposed to look like.

So that's the situation. If anyone has any ideas, please don't hesitate to chime in. I can use all the help I can get. And besides, I know there must be a few of you out there who enjoy these types of mechanical puzzles.

Thanks in advance!

[dlb]

engine oil and gear oil are two totally separate things. it sounds like you ran the engine pretty dry which can lead to the crank seizing (i think the rods seize in place on the crank but i could be mistaken), hence the engine oil light, but the fact everything sounded fine in neutral but horrible in gear AFTER adding oil to the engine makes it sound like your engine survived while your trans was run dry. i think the first thing to do is open at least one of the fill plugs on the trans (so that you can refill it afterward if it is salvageable) and then open all three drain plugs and see what comes out. this will tell you if the trans was run dry. you can try cranking the engine over by hand to see if it has seized, and then drain the oil from it as well to see how much it had in it.

strange that the there was a clunking sound from the trans area and then the engine died. maybe the clunk was something in the trans breaking, allowing the shifter to get stuck in gear while appearing to be in neutral, and then the engine stalled when you let the clutch out. that's all i can think of. i would try shifting through all the gears and see if it feels normal. if not, something in your trans has come apart and you can either crack it open and start digging or get a new used one and throw it in. transmissions are damned complicated so unless your bud knows his stuff, i would go with the second option.

i'm getting ahead of myself here though. first thing is to check to see if the engine has seized (there's no point in checking the oil since you just added some), then drain the oil. try shifting to test the trans, and open a fill plug and then drain the gear oil to see what it has in it. there's my two cents.

[Petros]

sorry to hear about that. I guess that is why they call them "idiot lights". When that oil light comes on you have about 30 seconds to shut the engine down or you have damaged it-badly. it is not like a check engine light where you can drive to a repair shop. You did not have even one mile, let along 15, to get the engine off. I guess no one ever told you about idiot lights, that is an "old school" way to educate people how to operate a car, they used to teach that to you in driver's ed, and also how to modulate the brakes, steering, etc.

No point in wasting any time with diagnosing it, pull the engine and replace all the bearings, possibly the oil pump too. pull the oil galley plugs and run a bore brush through all the bearings while it is out, wash out with solvent. Wash all the bearing parts out of the oil pan. You do not have to, but you might as well replace the rings while the engine out of it, which means replacing the head gasket again.

The flywheel was not involved with this mishap, what you see is normal wear on the teeth. The starter could not turn the engine because the bearings are melted together and it would not turn, it is likely just fine. To verify, pull the spark plugs and try and turn the engine over by hand at the front pulley bolt. You can also bench test the starter (put it in a vise so it does not twist out of your hands).

It is possible you also ran the trans dry at the same time, and did damage to that, but that seems unlikely since the trans lube and oil is unrelated to the engine. Try draining the trans oil and get a close look at it, verify you actually get 4 quarts out of it. IF there are metal flakes, or even very fine particles (looks like glitter), than the trans is damage as well. Make sure you refill the full 4.1 quarts back into the trans after you drain it. I would not necessarily replace the trans just because of fine metal flakes, you can try the flush and refill several times, than refill it to see if it will operate normally. But chances are all the problems are in the engine only.

Good luck.

[dlb]

petros, why would the engine sound fine while he was in neutral but noisy and awful in gear? i'm not challenging you, i just don't understand and am curious as to what you think specifically happened.

that's interesting about the starter not being able to crank the engine due to the bearings being melted. it's so simple--i'm always amazed at how simple and common sense a lot of mechanics is. funny how intimidating it can be when it's just a bunch of magical moving parts.

[yotanewb]

Damn. Well that's not a whole lot of good news. But I'll get to work on it today. I don't really have any other option than to fix it...

I'm just kinda curious as to why it wouldn't make any noise in neutral? This was really the only point that made me think transmission or something other than the engine. Is there a certain place in the engine where it is affected by which gear the transmission is in? I'll know a little more once I get in there, I'm just curious about the neutral thing.

Thanks again!

**Oops. Just saw that davidlucas posted the same question...

[dlb]

hey YW. no the engine doesn't care what gear it's in. it and the transmission have completely separate jobs. the clutch is what bridges the two systems but they do not interact directly.

curious to see how this turns out! sorry for your sitch, it sucks for sure.

[Petros]

it is possible that when the engine has no load on it, the oil pressure is enough to keep it from banging the bearings, when you put it in gear you now have much more load on the trans. fifth gear would be worst since it puts the most stress on the bearings (low rpm means fewer power strokes, so those are at higher load than at higher rpm).

It is possible there is something going on in the trans too, if so it would be unrelated to the engine bearing problem. This seems unlikely, all the symptoms you describe are entirely consistent with badly damage bearings after running it out of oil. I would also guess that the worst sounds related to rpm are from harmonics of the large bearing spaces at different rpms.

You can go to the picknpull and get a whole long block for $99, or just a short block for less. But there is a reason those cars end up in the yard, if the car is not wrecked it means either a wasted engine or trans. So pull the pan and bearing caps before you buy it. OTOH, it would be less expensive to just replace the bearings in your current engine, presuming the crank journals are not damaged. IF the crank needs regrinding than it might be less costly to just replace the short block with a good wrecking yard engine, go 4ac for more displacement for the same price!

Good luck.

[yotanewb]

it is possible that when the engine has no load on it, the oil pressure is enough to keep it from banging the bearings

Yeah, that makes sense. The engine wouldn't turn so something's bad in there. I've been taking it apart. Figured I might as well check everything while I'm getting down to the block. I pulled the valve cover and noticed all the valves are perfectly aligned. So I know that's not good. Could that be caused by the bearings?

Thanks again for the help. I can see that this is definitely going to be a project....

[Petros]

Perfectly aligned? do you mean the rocker arms are not pushing down on some of them? Could be you ground off the cam shaft, or the rocker arms without lube in it, so they no longer open and close. That is pretty bad. Might consider replacing the whole engine. Or get an import crate engine, usually only about $400, cheaper than a total rebuild. You can also go 3a or even 4ac. the head and the block should be tanked to get all the metal shavings out of it. Amazing it was running at all.

[yotanewb]

Perfectly aligned? do you mean the rocker arms are not pushing down on some of them?

Yeah, well I did mean that. But after looking at it a little closer they're not quite as aligned as I thought. They are actually at different heights, they're just pretty close to level. Maybe there's a point in the cycle where they aren't all completely opposite heights? The cam shaft and rocker arms look ok, so I'm hoping it's just at a point where they're all pretty close in position. But I can't remember the pattern of movement. And obviously it's not moving at all right now so I can't turn it to see.

Either way, I got held up with a bunch of stuff today so I'm putting off the dirty work till tomorrrow. I'll post with more info as it comes...

Thanks again.

[So_Powerful]

Just throwing it out there but a similar thing happened to me when my half shaft was not inserted all the way into the transaxle. Ground the end off and made very bad grinding noises but ran fine in neutral. Wouldn't budge though.

[yotanewb]

Just throwing it out there but a similar thing happened to me when my half shaft was not inserted all the way into the transaxle. Ground the end off and made very bad grinding noises but ran fine in neutral. Wouldn't budge though.

Sounds like it could be worth taking a look at it. What did you end up doing with it? Were you ever able to fix it at all?