How long is my transmission going to last?

[skate1968]

How long will my transmission last? How much longer do i have? I know that no one really knows exactly for sure, but i'd like some educated guesses.

I have a 1991 civic dx, 5 speed. The transmission shifts fine but it makes noise. No clunk or pop noises. I get whirring and whining.

The noise is faint when I’m accelerating. But gets louder when I’m slowing down. It's louder when I’m still in gear but not accelerating. “Noise on the ‘Decel,’” as someone described it. No noise at all in Nuetral. I only get real noise when deccelerating in 1, 2 and 3rd gear.

But it’s only noisey when I’m going slow--when I get over 33 mph my car sounds wonderful! Fourth and fifth gears sound fine. If I keep accelerating from 1st to 5th it doesn’t sound that bad. I'm happy with the performance.

It's been noisey for a few years.

Could i put a certain gear oil in my trans that might help quiet it down? RedLine?

Any thoughts? All comments welcomed.

 

[adam123]

how many miles on the trans

 

[skate1968]

The car has 187,000 miles. But before i bought my car it was in a major wreck. The guy who did my clutch showed me "weld jobs" that were next to the steering column.

You know, i never thought of that. My trans might be 300K for all i know.

 

[m2200b]

I swear by Redline in the transmission and you get better shifting in winter.

 

[rpn453]

How often has the tranny oil been changed? I'd change it every 60,000 miles. You'll have to search for other opinions for your particular car and, if unsure, just go with Honda MTF.

If it shifts good at that age, it probably hasn't been driven abusively. The 5-speed in my Mazda3 makes significantly more noise on deceleration in those lower gears than in any other driving conditions (other than reverse!), and always has. It's only two years old and I've had it since new. Maybe your tranny is in great shape?

 

[skate1968]

Thanks all for the responses.

Someone (i think it was MolaKule?) mentioned a higher viscosity oil might quiet down the whining sounds. First off, i understand viscosity means thickness. Second, what's the danger of gear oil that is too thick? It makes it more difficult to shift, right? That leads me to believe that i need a thicker gear oil. Maybe if i just change the fluid it would sound better.

 

[skate1968]

Rpn,

I had my trans fluid changed a few years ago. I'm thinking it's been like 70K. (I have the exact time written down somewhere.) And thanks for the positive thinking. But my trans is pretty loud.

I just got in to a sizeable accident a few months ago (another one, niether my fault). Maybe that it caused a slow leak in the trans? [maybe i should say it did and try to get the 'at fault' party's insurance to pay for a new trans]

 

[skate1968]

A mechanic told me that my manual tranny was dry and had no gear oil. He put oil in and it sounds better already.

And, of course, i'm a little embarrassed that i let this happen.

[In my defense, i'll say that my car was recently "totaled" in an accident and also losing lots of oil. Between finding a bumper in the junkyard and trying to recover losses through a lawsuit; scheduled maintenance took a back seat]

 

[skate1968]

"Maybe your tranny is in great shape?

" --rpn


I'm very happy to find out that you are correct!!!

 

[rpn453]

Good to hear. Hopefully the low oil level didn't add too much wear! Where did the oil go? Seal leak?

To answer your previous question: a heavier oil, especially one with more anti-wear additives such as a GL-5, would likely quiet noisy gears a little. Tranny life is dependent on the right viscosity and additive package though, so I'd generally advise staying with what is proven to work. That said, if one wanted to quiet an older, noisy tranny that recommended, for example, 75W-80 GL-5, they could use a 75W-90. Best to try new oil of the recommended type first though.

 

[skate1968]

Rpn,

Where'd the oil go? Good question. I thought my recent head on accident might have caused a leak. Mechanic thinks otherwise (but he's been wrong before). In any envent, I now know to watch it very closely.

A little added wear? Yes. But it sounds like it could easily go 10 times longer than what it sounded like two three days ago.

It's my understanding that Honda recommended regular 10W40 or 30 dino oil in their trans for years. Only recently did they come out with Honda MTF which is 10W40 with detergent.

So is 75W-80 just a much much heavier weight dino oil? I guess it is.

 

[theguru]

I would be surprised if the tranny was actually dry without oil at all. Probably low and needed a fill. Certainly better to keep it up to the full mark.

 

[skate1968]

hope you're right guru. In any event i need to watch it.

 

[turbodevil]

Gear oil viscosity is different than for engine oil. check out the viscosity chart on the bitog main page. As for whirring noises, I got my tranny to quiet down by cleaning it out with ARX and refilling it w/ Redline MT90. My mechanic was quite surprised at the results. Glad you lucked out.

 

[skate1968]

Thanks TurboDevil, i'll look at the chart and consider the ARX in my trans.

 

[skate1968]

The fact that Honda used to recoment engine oil in their trans might have thrown me off.

 

[LarryL]

Your noise is the roller bearings. No matter what kind of oil you use, a roller bearing wears out after enough miles go by. These bearings are a contact bearing, the roller is in contact with the race and will gradually wear to the poing that they start making noise, unlike a sleeve bearing like those on your crankshaft that floats on a cushion of oil. You should be able to have the bearings and seals replaced and use all the other parts over, again. You just have to find an honest mechanic to do the work. I have a Civic with 386k miles and at around 250k miles the noise got loud enough that I replaced just the bearings and seals and everything was fine. At a bit over 100k miles on the new bearings it works like a new transmission. The gears and syncros were in perfect condition. Civic transmissions are well designed and built. Over the years, I went from Honda transmission oil to Mobil 1 10w-30 engine oil to Red Line MTL, after the rebuild. Just remember, the noise is normal and just means that your transmission bearings are warn out and that the rest of the gears are probably still in good condition. Don't be talked into replacing everything just because of the wine in the gears.

And the Red Line MTL is 70w80 GL-4 gear oil and the Red Line label reads that it "Satisfies the gear oil viscosity requirements for 70w, 75w 80w, and motor oil viscosities SAE 30, 10w30 and 5w30."
Don't be confused by the fact that gear oil and motor oil have different ratins for, essentially the same weight oil.

 

[skate1968]

Hey Larry! Thanks for writing! I read about how you rebuilt your transmission in your previous posts. And yes, your trans had symptoms VERY similar to mine before you rebuilt it.

http://theoildrop.server101.com/cgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=24;t=002387;p=2

Furthermore I found your posts more helpful than posts in various 'honda civic' forums.

I'll tell a mechanic what you told me and maybe he'll give an estimate.

 

[LarryL]

skate, sounds like you're on your way. I wonder how many Honda owners have been sold a transmission when they didn't need it?

 

[skate1968]

Good question. I knew one mechanic whos diagnostics were just way better than everyone elses. He said that it's cheaper to put on a used transmission than it is to rebuild one. But with our Hondas that might not be true. You would know better than me.

Is it hard to do the rebuild that you did? Time consuming?