Sroche6373

So I just picked up my first 4th gen (2000 ws6 t56). When I went to look at it guy tells me only issue was it needed a rear main seal. Gave me paper work showing the trans was rebuilt by a local shop within the last 1k miles. When I went to drive it and noticed it made some weird noises that sounded like the trans had a bad bearing in it. I figure for 4500 bucks it was worth it to fix. Now that I got the almost pointless backstory out of the way, I need some advice haha. Here's what it's doing. Throw it in first gear and youd never know there was an issue.. once you get into second gear you can kind of hear a scraping sound. It gets progressively louder as you climb gears. However if you press in the clutch pedal it goes away no matter what. The best way to describe the noise is what pads and rotors sound like when there's no meat left on the pad haha. Just a grinding scrape sound. I dropped the trans and checked the T/O and it looks brand new. Clutch and Pressure Plate also looked in good shape. As well as the pilot bearing. I figure if it was the input bearing youd hear it even in first gear... but you dont.. And I figured if it was output bearing youd hear it all the time even coasting at high speeds in neutral. Any one got any ideas?

jmd

iTrader: (4)

Internal transmission bearing issues quiet down in direct gear (4th.)

Sure sounds like a bum throw out bearing.

Sroche6373

Update. I pulled the drive shaft, started it up and ran It through the gears. Didn't make any noise with the shaft out so I started looking elsewhere. Drained the dif and rotated the pinion by hand. There's no slop up and down or side to side but has a slightly "Sandy" sound while rotating it. Does anyone have any experience with these? I'm curious at this point if that would echo up the drive shaft and make it sound like it was coming from the trans area/back of the motor

cam

iTrader: (9)

Noises can be a sumbitch to find the source of. If the trans spins freely its probably ok, there really isnt much that can be 'wrong' if its aseembled correctly its bearings are in the correct place. The pre load might be off or the gears might be a bit worn and who knows who built it? Add age, there is risk on such a purchase no matter which one you buy even a new built by 'whoever' sometimes there are issues. It doesnt mean every great builder is perfect nor does it mean that even a shady builder didnt bang out a mint build here and there. Its a risk and you need to get good with that or this entire hobby will frustrate you more than please you.

Want to know for sure? Pull it apart and check it yourself, its a lot of work but the sticky has a good guide on it. In my experience anything not OEM fresh ( less than 50k miles ) is still a risk. Sooner or later if you buy enough parts your going to get a bad one.

So build on, fix the crap, praise the good, and have fun! Or not, totally up to you