I stayed up too late last night and I'm paying for it today.
One of the guys I work with is going to Iceland next week. He bought a fancy new camera ahead of his trip and wanted to take some pics of my car to get in some practice. I even [finally] cleaned the windows since I figured his pics would have enough resolution to pick up the soapy streaks from me installing the windows a few weeks ago.
Turns out Kevin wanted to shoot some rolling shots. So we went for a little cruise and he took about 100 shots. Of those, I think <5 came out decently. You gotta start somewhere, right? No worries. He can take as many pics of my jalopy as he wants.
After work, I reassembled my lift, backed in the LBDC, and did this.
I don't remember if I've discussed this prior, but I didn't take out the motor because I just like recycling oil.
When I got the trans back from being upgraded, it had developed a new noise. The noise was intermittent and inconsistent. It only happened in 1-4 gears while driving, and it happened once (maybe twice) while pushing the car in neutral.
It never happened in 5th or reverse.
The noise would be worse when the gearbox was cold and would mostly subside when warm/hot.
A couple weeks ago, I pulled the diff just to be sure and everything checked out. The fluid was a little sparkly and I found a couple small shards stuck to the magnetic drain plug. I put it back together and continued to drive it. The noise hasn't gotten worse or better and it's occupied a lot of my brain-power over the last couple months. Like it's been a constant worry, but it hasn't felt like a dire emergency. So I've picked a lot of brains, scoured the interwebs for pics and anecdotes and tales of woe, and mulled over the inner working of the 915 in my mind's eye.
A couple days ago, I was able to put together that if the noise occured in every gear but fifth and reverse, and fifth and reverse are next to each other in the gearbox, the problem is likely in the 5/R fork. In 1-4 & N, the 5/R fork is also in neutral. That's when the noise happens. But as soon as fifth or reverse are selected, the noise goes away and cannot be replicated. That would indicate that the fork is either out of alignment, was made poorly, or there is some other forkery affecting it.
Armed with this newfound enlightenment, I ordered a 915 gasket kit from Pelican and paid extra for 2-day shipping to have it by tomorrow and planned to pull the engine & gearbox and open up the 5/R housing. Last night, I got the housing off and despite the countless hours of research and discussion, it still took me a minute to figure out exactly what I was looking at.
(what I was looking at)
If you look closely at the reverse idler...and specifically its proximity to reverse...you'll see that the clearance is a bit lacking.
*enhance*
Sonofabush, the kid was right.
I could turn the output flanges (input still firmly attached to the engine) and spin the reverse gear. When I turned down the music, I could just make out an occasional *tink tink tink* as the gears touched. At this time, I did another round of googling and then phoned a friend. I spent an hour on FaceTime with Tony (shooooo32) and he agreed that I hadn't lost the plot. So I loosened the lone 6mm allen screw securing the 5/R fork and slid it over ~3mm.
*result*
It's worth noting that I'd also been texting the gent who did the work on the trans. He just hadn't gotten back to me yet. By the time he saw I'd blown his phone up, it was already fixed. He agreed that I was correct, apologized profusely for the oversight, and was generally relieved that I'd figured it out. I do not hold anything but respect and appreciation for him. It was the tiniest of mistakes and yielded no significant bad result save me needing to recycle a bit more oil. He had offered to take it back and figure it out, but that wasn't super tenable (to me) because of the distance and lack of severity. No hard feelings at all.
So I'm waiting for my gasket kit to arrive tomorrow so I can pluck the one gasket I need, seal the box back up, fill it with fresh sauce, and shove it all back in the car. I expect I'll still be painting the bumper and valance this weekend and driving it to work on Monday.
As for tonight, I'm likely to take two melatonin and try to get a full 8 hours of sleep.
