93 XJ transmission bearing noise...help

[Ryno]

Hello... I'm new to the board and I just bought a 93 XJ off of my girlfriends dad. I got it at a really good price because he had no use for it anymore and wanted rid of it. It's in great condition... it had 165k miles but they replaced the engine a few months ago with one with 65k miles on it. It's a 2.5L by the way. It runs great and the body is in good condition.

The only problem is that the bearings in the transmission whine. It's just like a constant whine throughout all the gears except when the clutch is pushed in.( I can hardly hear it in 4th though) Before I bought it... they took it to a local shop and they quoted them $600 to fix it... but I am somewhat mechanical and have people that are good with transmissions... so when I do it I'm going to end up doing it myself.

So will it hurt it to drive it for long like that? A couple guys at work told me that it's not that big of a deal and just to get it fixed sometime. When I do it I'll prob just put a new clutch in it too... and maybe a SYE...Let me know what you guys think.

-Ryan

[Dukes69]

Most likely it will be fine . . . check the fluid level and/or put some new stuff in there. Worse case is the bearing ceases and it breaks more stuff. I dont know much about jeep manual trannys, hopefully some others will pipe up and help you out. Good Luck!

[CherokeeFever]

My 88 had the same problem and it worked fine up until my dad
shelled it out two winters ago and bought me my dream driveline:

NV3550/NVG231 built to my specs.

I tried synthetic gear oil, heavier gear oil, etc....finally, I just left it be, as there was no problem that I could find other than the noise itself.

Let it be till something gives.....

[[Fe]weapon]

Dont pilot bearings whine like that till the clutch is pushed in?

[rick]

The problem is most likely one of the counter shaft bearings. Does it do it worse in 5th? If so, it is probably the rear bearing. If it does it worst in second, it is probably the front bearing. 4th gear is straight through the tranny, with the counter shaft doing nothing but spinning around with no load on it. If one of the counter shaft bearings is bad, you will get worse whine with all gears except 4th. 5th gear is overhung on the back side of the trans, so the load the rear bearing sees is highest in 5th gear, which usually makes the noise worse in 5th. If it's real loud, you might want to do it sooner rather than later if you plan on keeping this tranny. If you don't care about it and plan on buying a rebuilt unit or doing a swap, then change the fluid and drive it like you stole it. Holy mackerel, i just noticed how old this post is, guess I missed it first time around. Hope you got it worked out. d'oh.

[JeepJunkie]

my 87 xj has a whining bearing type sound when i push the clutch pedal in and i am coasting...kinda annoying but i learn to ignore it