Started noticing a weird whine/buzz sound coming from the transmission area about a month ago or so. It's stayed pretty much the same since then in intensity. It's most noticeable in 1st and 2nd gears at low speeds. Very faint in 3rd, for as much as I can tell it's gone in 4th and 5th however my truck isn't exactly quiet so who knows. It's a bit louder in low range 1st and second. If I so much as touch the clutch, like barely any pressure at all, it goes away. I can't hear it in neutral.

It's a w56 5spd.

 

How many miles on the transmission?

That's not pilot bearing, that's transmission bearings.

If it were a pilot bearing, you'd get noise when the clutch pedal was down and transmission in gear, but goes away when the clutch pedal was up or pushed into neutral.

 

Really? I thought if I got noise with the clutch in that'd be the throwout bearing. As far as I know it's the original transmission. 230,000 miles.

 

Windsor is right. The pilot bearing will only spin with the clutch in(same with the throw out).

I've seen a few front main bearings go. It takes a long time before you start having problems.

Make sure your oil is full.

 

Thanks, I'll change the oil this week and start saving for a rebuilt from MC. ...and a MC HD clutch/flywheel. The only thing I keep telling myself is "you're lucky you don't have new car payments so don't feel too bad about dumping countless funds into your truck".

 

ya check the oil.. it can tell ya alot.. if its got lots of metalic flakes or sparkles in it.. or even worse chunks.. id be real nice to it and start to look for one to replace it with or start saving for a rebuild kit or enough to have it done.. i will say when i lost the tranny in my 85... a bearing went out and it caused a catastrophic failure.. to the point of complete destruction of the gearsets and pretty much all the guts to it. wish i knew where i put the pics of the carnage. not saying that its gonna go south on ya for sure but dont think it wont happen lol

 

I had a similar problem.

I had removed the boot on the side of the tranny when we did the clutch. This broke the seal. After a few rains water got in and started to rust the pivot up. This caused a high pitch squeaking that would go away as soon as there was pressure put on the clutch.

I sprayed a buncha lithium grease in there and sealed the boot with RTV... no problems yet....

 

I've never rebuilt a tranny before nor do I have the proper tools or a press. I'm guessing the cost of having it rebuilt by someone local that I'm not totally sure about doing it right would be similar to the cost of a rebuilt from MC. I recently changed the oil and went to synthetic over the summer. Maybe I'd have been better off leaving in the murky old conventional mystery aged mixture that was in it, lol.

Mine definitely isn't a squeaking though. It's a buzzy medium pitched whine that comes and goes in relation to the amount of torque going through the tranny in 1st and 2nd. Going up a hill? Bad whine... Coasting... almost nothing.

 

ya if the trans decides to quit on me in my runner ill be lookin at a marlin tranny.. that man knows his stuff when it comes to gears

 

Well. If I was in your position, I would start looking for a used transmission. They can be had for dirt cheap...

 

Yeah I've sent pm's to a couple of the used parts people on here but the idea of a mystery used transmission and all the hassle of swapping one in just to possibly have someone else's problems kind of makes me shiver

 

I just dropped "two large" to have a shop rebuild my transmission. Low oil (previous owner) caused every gear but 4th to disappear.

Transmission internals are such that 4th is "straight through", so if you get noise in every gear but 4th, that means things aren't going well internally. I had a transmission in my '83 RX-7 do the same thing, but it took another 50k miles before it eventually let go. That gave me ample time to shop around for a replacement.

In the meanwhile, I got to experience all of the other bearing failures as well. The pilot bearing is "used" only when the engine is turning and the input shaft is specifically not turning. That usually means that your clutch is down and shifter in gear.

If shifter was in Neutral, then the input shaft would (generally) freely rotate with the crankshaft -- there's nothing to prevent that.

If your clutch (pedal) is up, then the input shaft is locked to the crankshaft (ignoring clutch slippage), so your pilot bearing is not engaged at that point either.

The shifter fork (throwout) bushing moans regardless of neutral selection, since it is used any time the clutch is down.

If you get noise in gear with the clutch pedal up, then neither of these two bearings are in play, so the noise has to be something else.

Generally if you're up in there to change the throwout bushing, you might as well swap out the pilot bearing (or vice-versa). Pilot bearings and seals are generally cheap (under $15 for the pair).

 

Changed the gear oil, had some water in it but it wasn't TOO bad. No chunks, about a 1/8" thick layer of metal dust on the drain plug. It's weird the noise goes away as soon as I practically just rest my foot on the clutch. Like not even to the point of the fork starting to move, just taking up the pedal slack. Is that just taking enough stress off the input shaft to ease up the tired bearings making the noise?

 

that might apply enough pressure to the input shaft to alter the pressure on the bearings.

 

or the slight pressure on the pedal moves the release fork enough to load the release bearing but not disengage the clutch from the flywheel, indicating failing release bearing not pilot bearing since the input shaft is still turning with the clutch/flywheel.