How many trannys will I have to go through?

M

mslimmer

My Subie:
'94 Legacy Ti, AWD, manual transmission.

At around 135K mi. my transmission started to refuse to stay in 4th.
It would occasionally pop out of gear, especially when decelerating.
Predictably the problem got worse and I bit the bullet and swapped in
a "new" transmission. Unfortunately I didn't bit the bullet hard
enough. I opted, due to time and money constraints, to use a salvaged
transmission. I have no idea how many miles were on this replacement
tranny but I got it in (with a new clutch and half axles) and a lot of
cursing.

Everything seemed fine until now, about a year and a half or 10K miles
later. My first undesirable symptom was difficulty getting into 2nd.
It felt like it wouldn't get into gear all the way or sometimes it
would just feel blocked. Don't know if it was just me figuring out
the nuances of the difficulty or what, but that problem resolved
itself. It has now been replaced by the original problem. Won't stay
in 4th.

Ok, I'm getting to the point of my question. I cracked the old
transmission and found a severely worn main shaft bearing and the rear
thrust bearing had about an 1/8 inch groove worn in it. I've replaced
those and I'm waiting to get the motivation to swap it back in (read:
waiting for the current situation to devolve into an undrivable
condition). What I'm wondering is Did I do something wrong?
I mean, I know I should have done the original replacement with a
rebuilt or new tranny. But now I've gone through two transmissions,
only one of which I installed, and I'm wondering why. Is it my
driving? Did I just get unlucky? Is there a chronic problem with my
or all subies of this vintage?

I've searched and read through this group (love what I've learned so
far) but can find no satisfactory answer. I hope someone out there
has an answer or at least some junk science to throw my way. Thanks.

-Max

PS: Where is the viscous coupler differential? I've been in the
transmission and it didn't jump out at me.
 
My Subie:
'94 Legacy Ti, AWD, manual transmission.

I'm going to leave the rest of your post below, but what you describe
down there does NOT sound like a manual transmission to me. What's
happening with the clutch? Oh, there's no clutch, you say? Ah, then
you have an automatic transmission.
 
KLS said:
I'm going to leave the rest of your post below, but what you describe
down there does NOT sound like a manual transmission to me. What's
happening with the clutch? Oh, there's no clutch, you say? Ah, then
you have an automatic transmission.

I'm pretty sure I have a clutch. And as far as I can tell its fine.
The old one (clutch) used to shudder when taking off in first. Since
installing the new clutch, no more shudder.
 
I will go for a design defect or a lubrication issue, but driving habits
cannot be discounted.

3rd gen Nissan Maximas with manual trannies, for example, are prone to
damage input shaft bearings, the reason, too small a bearing for the job
and too high in the housing, so if the oil level goes down (think leak),
you loose lubrication and cooling to that bearing.

Good luck!
 

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