Noisy transmission in '40 Ford-need helping diagnosing problem

B

bullrunmotor

Senior Member
Was pulling up a tar and chip road and shifted into 2nd gear at about 20 mph cresting a hill.
The tires chirped pretty good shifting into second on the loose road surface and I stopped at stop sign. Pulled away and noticed a da da da da da noise when in second gear and same noise also when in neutral with clutch out but not with clutch pedal pushed down/in. Had car for 25 years with no issues.
Going to put up on lift and pull side cover off trans.
what should I be looking for.
Thanks in advance
 
With trans in neutral while engine is idling at a stop, with clutch disengaged the trans shafting should be at rest. With the clutch engaged, the input shaft and the counter shaft gear will be rotating. Noise will be related to those two shafts and their bearings. Intermediate gear is one of the two positions that are shifted by the synchroniser. They had balls and springs in the hub that can sometimes fail so make sure it still shifts smoothly into 2nd (intermediate) gear. The side cover can be removed to inspect the gears to a certain degree but not every thing is visible in there. A chipped tooth should be visible but bad bearings are not so easy to detect. The trans should also shift smoothly into high gear. If there is a problem shifting into 2nd or 3rd then that's on the synchro function.
 
Look for metal shavings and I would inspect the condition of the cluster and main shaft gears. Sounds like a good possibility the transmission is going to have to come out for service.
 
Drain the oil out and flush the case and see if there are any metal pieces or ground up metal in the oil. I would pull the trans out now before whatever is making the noise gets caught between the gears and splits the case wide open. Remember there could be 85 years of wear on those parts.
Good luck.
 
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