i posted this over in the talk forum and i'm not getting much of a response. i'll try it over here. forgive my impatience. i'm looking at a 90' 5-spd trooper over in georgia. i'm visiting my folks this weekend, who happen to live fairly close to this trooper. everything looks good except the owner says the transmission makes a constant noise in 5th gear (only 5th). he said it started, roughly, a year ago. i did some searching and it sounds like he has put gear oil in his transmission instead of regular oil. is this an accurate diagnosis or could it possibly be the clutch going out.

should i buy it or keep looking?

thanks for the help

joel s.

A clutch going out will slip. Input shaft bearings and or throw out bearings will give you noises that will change by either putting the clutch in or out and maybe will change upder load/not under load.

If this noise is only in 5th gear, it is probably something in the tranny.

Did the guy put gear oil in? We can't tell. Is it going to last a long time? We can't tell. Should you buy it? Your decision. At least you know the problem before you make the decision.

Steve G

PS And I did see this post in the talk section as well. Double posting is not the right way to handle this. You should have gone into the other post and posted a "BTT" (Back To Top) reply instead.

steve, thanks for the info.

i didn't realize double posting was a no no and wasn't aware of btt feature (i'm new at posting stuff). thanks for tighting me up.

Joel-

Don't worry, the first spanking around here is free!! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

The best thing you can do for this rig is to crawl under and pull the fill plugs out of the transmission. Smell them. If they smell like gear oil, then there is either gear oil in there right now or there was.

If it is not full of gear oil now, but it still smells, then there is a chance the input bearing is toast. What happens is that the gear oil is too thick to properly lube all the bearings. The weakest and farthest away is the input bearing.

If it is indeed this, you are looking at probably a new (used) tranny. The rebuild cost will be close to new (or used) and it is not really a DIY kind of project.

At least you are going into it with some knowledge.

Michael

BTW, if you're not familiar with the smell of gear oil that Michael describes.... imagine what spoiled dinosaurs smell like.

Seriously, the 30-weight won't hardly have a smell. The 90-weight *DEFINTELY* will -- and you won't want it on you.

Randii

i appreciate everyones' replies but i've decided to pass on this one. i'm supposed to be on a budget and this is suppose to be fun for me. if it breaks shortly after purchasing it, then, i've blown my budget and THAT wouldn't be fun.