Rede

iTrader: (2)

On Saturday, we hopped in the T/a and drove from Grande Prairie, AB to Penticton, BC. (around 1400kms)

Car was running great and was certainly nice to take a long drive in it.

Appon reaching Penticton, I started hearing a whine from the rear end when letting off the gas from around 50km/h right down to 5-ish km/h.
I only notice the noise when decelling, accellerating doesn't seem to make any noise that I can hear over the exhaust.

I thought maybe it was cooked rear diff fluid, but it was changed last month with Lucus 85/90 heavy duty gear oil.. and again today I changed it.
I popped the cover off and had my dad eyeball it.
We didn't know backlash or any of that, but were mostly looking for metal filing, chewed teeth and that sort... but things seemed alright.

Only thing dad noticed was a bit of wheel bearning play on the passenger side, but its fairly little.

Car is a 2001 T/A A4 with 137,0xxkms on the clock.
It has been to the track 5 times since I've owned as of last fall and still has original 3.23's in the stock 10 bolt. I run M/T E.T. drag radials at the track and have a 3200 vig converter installed.

I have never noticed any whining from the gears, trany, ect... and the limited slip seems to work just fine while at the track.

We're only here till wednesday and leave at like 6:30am in dad's Yukon, Vancouver bound. We'll return early thursday morning to dads, then we have to hit the road back to home.

We have basic shop tools here and I have very little money left for our holidays.

Anyone have any eyes?

I'm worried that we may not make it back home

cam

iTrader: (9)

Whine on decel could mean pinion pre load is out of whack. Possibly the rear is hurting a little from your track trips and you only notice it when it gets good and heated up such as a long trip. Checking pinion pre load is not a side of the road operation but I doubt very much your going to blow it up if you drive it normally back home. You could try a heavier lube like a 80w140 that should quiet things down.

Rede

iTrader: (2)

Thanks Cam.

We're at my dad's house till early tomorow morning.

What's all involved in getting the pre load that you mentioned back to proper specs?

Any links to how-to sites would be a huge help!

cam

iTrader: (9)

To check it properly you have to pull the driveshaft and carrier and using a dial type inch pounds torque wrench you measure the rotation pre load on the bearings. As long as its between 8-14 inch pounds your okay on used bearings. If its lower than that you have to install a new crush sleeve or better yet a solid pinion spacer. Its a very low buck job if you can do the work yourself its just fairly invloved being that you have to drop the guts out of the rear and all. Theres quite a few threads dealing with this on here I dont have any links handy though so you'll have to search but its not that difficult just be sure to keep track of your carrier shims and caps do not mix them up. Good luck

***edit*** just found this. gives you an idea whats invloved.

http://www.keliente.com/gears1.htm

Rede

iTrader: (2)

Hmm.. I'll have to show it to dad and see if he's comfortable with tackling it. Thanks again!

Rede

iTrader: (2)

The Good:

3.73's installed in just under 5 hours and NOT friggin wailing or whine!
Schoomed with the shop own and landed my first sponsor. Need a break on the labour.

The Bad:
590 for gears, wheel bearings and gear install kit.
and of corse the root of the problem:

Rede

iTrader: (2)

Need to heat cycle the gears a bit right after supper, then I'll hit the track this weekend. SHooting for 12's

cam

iTrader: (9)

Wow something got in there. Check your spider gears for little cracks or pieces missing. I bet a little chunk flew off and got jammed in that bearing. Still glad to heaqr you got it fixed. Good luck at the track

Rede

iTrader: (2)

Sorry to update this so late.

Opted for 3.73's while replacing the wheel bearings.

All components of the spiders and other inner workings I was told were still in great shape.
I saved the original 3.23's and they too have no signs of abnormal wear as far as the mechanic was concerned.

It rains the day before Dragwars and on Saturday morning, the first day of the races.
The air was the shetz when we finally got the track dried off thanks to the airport's HUGE blowers towed behind their snowplow/sanding/dump trucks.

Calculated air on my one time slip was -22,000' with 99.8% humidity.
The rest of the slips didn't have any weather info because some ***-hat decided to yank the cord from the generator without shutting the computer down which caused a power spike and toasted the computer.

Best run the whole weekend was a disappointing 13.8s @ 97mph with a 2.0 60' while my personal best before the gear swap was 13.19 @ 101.2 mph with a 1.79 60'.

I was told that the lower gears should give me more acceleration out of the whole as well as near the top end seeing how I was only in drive (3rd) @ 4500rpms with stock gears.

I noticed that my launch seemed the same through first, but when I hit second, the car seemed to be really lacking the usual 'suck you in your seat' acceleration.

Could the torque management be doing its thing and pulling timing??

The programing is still done stock, but I was wanting to get a mail order tune soon...
Would disabling the torque management give second gear back the life that it once had?

chicane

That kind of bearing damage is caused by one of three things... excessive pre-load, bearing overload or fatigue spalling.

Rede

iTrader: (2)

The front seal was seeping a bit. Would that be a sign of any of those conditions?

All so would those conditions have other noticable effects such as excessive wear or chewing of the gears?

Nothing else showed any signs of damage or excessive wear.

cam

iTrader: (9)

Chicane again where you been all my life?

Looks like a pinion bearing to me but its hard to tell in that pic. I've had the case hardening come off on bearings before because they were crap *** bearings and it looked like that. This was on trailer axles and it used to happen to me fairly often til I stopped using the no name 6 dollar specials and put some halfway decent NTN's in there. But too much preload on the pinion nut is easily done and the vibes coming out of that damged bearing would cause seepage. The seals are not the most difficult things to compromise either.

Anyways its fixed and now other problems of which I have minimal input. All I can tell you about the timing is any hotter than 90 degress IAT temps and it starts to pull timing. Might want to look at some kind of cold air intake along with an IAT relocation. Theres plenty of info on that here

Rede

iTrader: (2)

Yup thats the pinion bearing. =\

all is good now though. very slight gear noise, but its extremly livable lol