Fantom

Hi,

Yestrday after driving home from my girlfriends i noticed that the gear stick was a bit dodgy, felt a bit restricted, and when i parked on the drive I wiggled it side to side to hear a kind of metallic scraping sound coming from the gear box. It also happens when engaging first gear. Anyway, first step was to check the gearbox oil, which to my dismay was completely dry. Filled it up with the litre of castrol syntrax i had in the garage, and now its about half full, but more importantly over the low level mark. However, although the other gears now feel smoother, first gear and side to side movement is still resulting in the dodgy noise. Obviously the guy who had the car before me never bothered to have it serviced. I've only had the car a few months and did all the oil change etc when i got it, only i never thought to check the gearbox oil.
Now obviously driving with no oil has probably ruined the gearbox, but the car still drives fine...............so, what am i looking at here???
Do i need to get it looked at or do i just keep driving it until it really breaks?
I'm hoping that the damage isnt that bad and that it will still last for a while. I dont wanna be having to pay for it to be rebuilt.
Any one had this problem as well???
Any suggestions???

Thanks
Steve

PS: Car is a 94 WRX

SuperFlyGuy

Ok. Im not an expert, so may be wrong, but I would investigate the selector arm to see if it is fouling on something (get under car to look and listen while someone wiggles gear stick side to side). You may get a better idea as to what is causing this sound. I dont think it will be the gearbox itself tho (might be wrong though)

This needs rectifying immediately. Some of the experts on here recommend running the gear box oil slightly OVER the full mark, 3mm above. The reason is to protect (from memory) third gear which can be slightly startved of oil

This is what I would do. Remove drain plug from gear box and drain out all gear oil into a clean can. Inspect the drain plug end (it has a magent attached to collect any metalic particles). This will usually be a slight grey "paste" which is normal, any large particles in large quantities may be a worry. Inspect the drain can for any evidence of metalic particles. There should be none.

Make sure the car is parked flat, refil with new Castrol Syntrax 75-90 gear oil until it is 3 mm above the full mark. The only other thing you can do is try to investigate the noise further, but assuming there is no whinning noise during drive then I would be happy that the gearbox is OK. Having siad that there are people on here that happily drive with some gearbox noise without any problems. If I were you I would keep driving as normal, fix it if/when it breaks!

You may find that the gears are smoother after this anyway.
PS if servicing has been neglected you would be wise to do a complete service, engine oil and filter is a first priority

Hope that helps,
Ian