'72 Bus - Transmission - Grinding Sound

[Sluggo]

Following some advice I read in an old Samba thread, I drained my tranny fluid (only had a few hundred miles) and filled her up with Redline MT-90 Synthetic GL4. The sound was cut in half immediately and seems to get quieter every time I drive her. I am truly sold on this stuff. It's sold at motorcycle shops (most Harley shops) and specialty performance stores. $9.50 per quart but definitely worth it to get rid of (or greatly lessen) that noise.

[Amskeptic]

Following some advice I read in an old Samba thread, I drained my tranny fluid (only had a few hundred miles) and filled her up with Redline MT-90 Synthetic GL4. The sound was cut in half immediately and seems to get quieter every time I drive her. I am truly sold on this stuff. It's sold at motorcycle shops (most Harley shops) and specialty performance stores. $9.50 per quart but definitely worth it to get rid of (or greatly lessen) that noise.

Time for me to give it a try. . . this $450.00 Fast German Auto trans rebuild is getting sloppy. That noticeable of a difference?
Colin

[Sluggo]

Time for me to give it a try. . . this $450.00 Fast German Auto trans rebuild is getting sloppy. That noticeable of a difference?
Colin

It didn't remove the sound completely. But it isn't so loud that people look anymore. The constant grind has gone down about 50% and the sound when I push in the clutch has decreased by about 80%! This is my tranny fluid for life!

[regalasr]

I decided to give that Redline MT-90 a try myself. For the people in Los Angeles, this old school hot rod shop called "Service Center" at 12222 Garvey Ave in El Monte has lots of MT-90 on the shelf.

I been hearing what I thought was transmission noise for a couple weeks. So I picked up 4 quarts of MT-90 to see if that will quiet things down. Well, when I got down to Long Beach after picking up the MT-90, the tranny noise got really loud and I went back to take a look at the engine, turned out my generator pulley was about to explode. The keyway on the pulley had rounded out and took out the threads on the generator shaft. No way to fix it in the parking lot.

Limped to a nearby shop and they stayed late to get me back on the road with a rebuilt generator.

So lesson was check that generator/alternator pulley when you hear that transmission howling. May not be the tranny at all.

[Elwood]

Wow Steve, thats a good and bad story. Generator is cheaper than trannie. Makes me wonder if that is what was happing with Elwood up in the Yukon. I will most certainly check out the work they did in Oregon, replacing that shatered pully. The guy said as I was leaving to watch out for my generator going south????? And the trannie is not howling anymore but I assumed it was due to the Lucas oil that was added.

Thanks for your story. Barb

[Amskeptic]

I been hearing what I thought was transmission noise for a couple weeks.

So I picked up 4 quarts of MT-90 to see if that will quiet things down.

turned out my generator pulley was about to explode.

So lesson was check that generator/alternator pulley when you hear that transmission howling.

So the lesson is to sharpen up our diagnostic tracks.

The fastest way to separate transaxle sounds from the engine is to simply step on the clutch. The input shaft comes to a halt, transaxle is out of the picture.