After 26 spline input shaft and clutch change trans is noisy

bigwave

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Looking for a little advice here, I just swapped out my clutch to a Mcleod RST, new Mcleod stock flywheel, new TOB (ford racing), new idle bearing (ford racing), new TOB sleeve it went in fine and input shaft centered perfectly, Put back together with .0038 shim way too tight-then to 36 too tight then back to stock shim .0034 shaft would turn now but zero end play, went to a .0032 and felt just right on end play (.0005 almost unmeasurable) was tight but shaft moved without any resistance and felt like the old 10 spline before I took it out.

Now, the car makes a murmering noise when clutch is out and in nutral or going down the road, another words when input shaft is turning. I don't think it's the clutch or TOB.

Those of you who have done this a few times, should I take it back apart and look it over?
Can the input shaft be too tight? If the input shaft has nearly zero endplay is that a problem?
As I said with everything tightend back up and sealed up I have nearly zero end play but I can easily turn the input shaft by hand and it feels perfectly smooth, same feel as when the factory 10-spline was in it, but for sure less end play.

This transmission has always been a little noisy but not given problems, fluid looked good.
I am running Pennzoil syncromesh in it. And have just turned 200 miles on new setup.
 

BLOWN9646

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Not sure it's the issue, but do you have a firewall adjuster & clutch quadrant?
 

bigwave

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Yes, I have the firewall adjuster and quadrant, but, that is not the issue. The TOB is sitting right where it should, I installed a pivot ball adjuster when I did the clutch that allowed me to go a little lower. Or, at least I really doubt it.
 

cj428mach

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If you put it in 4th gear and the noise goes away its a good sign its the input shaft setup.
 

bigwave

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Whelp, I respect what Mike at AMP told me but I feel there is something wrong, the noise is getting louder. I went out tonight and made a few recordings and a few more discoveries. Bare with me:
Clutch out car in neural it makes a "buhrr-ruur-ruur-ruur-ruur" sound, no grinding or vibration in the stick. Sound is there through all gears, the only way it stops is car in gear and clutch pressed in AND car NOT moving. Another interesting thing I found was this: If I am coasting along and press the clutch in and put the car in gear the noise is present and louder with the lower gears, example loudest in 1st and quieter until 6th but still there, again this is while coasting and clutch pressed in. So, in a nut shell, the only way it makes no noise is if you stop the input shaft from turning, by what I'm thinking. We did have a very hard time getting it back in until we tied up the wire harness from the top, we really wrestled with it. I wonder if we somehow damaged the input shaft bearing (Pilot Bearing) ?? The two bearings that would always be turning by my test would be the input shaft bearing and the pilot bearing. And the tail shaft bearing at the rear of the input shaft.
The TOB sleeve went in straight and the input shaft looked perfectly centered within it. What you think? It's not being driven anymore and will be coming apart, the sound has for sure worsened over the 200 miles I put on it.
I do have a major fear that I need to check into, I wonder if the manufacturer did not press in the rear tail shaft bearing race?? I looked it over well but didn't specifically check the rear bearing race.
 

JPIStang

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I'm having the exact same problem. All the bearings look perfect, and the race IS present in the back of the input shaft. TOB retaining sleeve is pressed in properly. End play is .002, which is the closest I could get. I found out when I re-measured end play after hearing the sound, that it was past .002, well past. I didn't have the transmission vertical and I wasn't using a high quality gauge the first time I checked.

So. Do I wait for it to "break in"? Do I order a 10 spline friction disk and go back to the 10 spline OEM shaft? Do I return it and buy a competitor's shaft?

I have no answers at this point.
 
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cj428mach

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My friend installed an aftermarket input shaft himself and it made noise, so he took it to a shop. The shop looked everything over and said it was all good and determined the problem was the input shaft. They installed a brand new tremec brand 26 spline shaft and the noise was gone.
 

bigwave

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Here are my results, and I'm NOT "planning" on taking it back apart and changing the shaft again, I hope I don't regret it!!

Update from 8/19/17:
Car went back on lift, transmission came back out, I'll just go though what we found. A few notes, it just so happened that a semi retired individual who rebuilds large capacity jacks for the company who allows me to barrow their lift and trans jack on weekends was there and one of their hoist installers who is a semi retired fully qualified mechanic and get this, yes, he rebuilt transmission for years, including t56's in vets, he stopped by to do a few minutes work and assisted in the shimming and run out measuring of the input shaft!
smile-new.png

Clutch: Still looked like new, no dust, no rubs, nothing
Idle bearing: still perfect plenty of grease and no rubbing on end of candle stick or inside the pilot hole all looked great
TOB: Perfect, looks good, still spins perfectly TOB sleeve still nice film of grease, etc.
Input shaft: perfectly centered in TOB sleeve, splines clean, not rubbing on anything no marks

Now for the removal of front of trans housing to get the input shaft out.
1st) Input shaft had what I felt was a lot of play, side to side and in and out, it was not like that when we put it back together, it was very tight, but spun freely
Note: it did spin freely and felt fine, but a lot of play, Update: on this, upon further reading this is pretty common in t56 with the Vett guys, so ???

Input shaft: removed, looked perfect no rubbing or dark spots on races or the conical bearings, no metal, no dark spots or fluid from rubbing, oil looked like new, it was new! 210 miles on this.

Notes: Counted teeth on new (26) and old 10spline shaft, both 31, compared the old and new shaft in every possible way without having some super high end equipment, all identical in every "seeable" way, I even reinstalled the old shaft and measured where it rode on the 4th gear-gear vs the new one, once again, identical.

Front bearing and race: perfect

Rear bearing and race: The one on the rear of the candlestick or input shaft, once again it looked perfect, the wizards who were there looked it over with magnifying glass and bright pin lights, neither of them could feel or see anything that did not look as good as it can. No hot spots, ware marks, etc.
Re assemble and shimming: as I stated above the shaft was loose, how did this happen?? I don't know, I'd speculate maybe a piece of debris from the packing of the new input shaft was somehow left behind?? I don't know, this is a mystery.
What we did: we reassembled it had a .0033 shim, went to a .0035 shim, still to loose, went to .0038 still too loose, went all the way to a .0042 shim before Tony, the guy who used to rebuild trannys would even setup his input gauge, he liked it, book calls for .0000 to .0002 of end play, with the .0042 shim and no RTV we had .00005 of end play and shaft turned freely by hand and the lateral movement was very little. His assessment was after RTVing it, it would be in the .0001 to xxxx level.

That's it, no smoking gun, all in specs, all looked nearly perfect after 210 miles, clutch still looked like new, no rubbing anywhere.
Put the trans back in and this time put the cheapest Dexron III fluid in it money can buy, this is ranch king 2 gallon jug $16 bucks from a local farm supply store. It, of course, meets or exceeds all Dex III, IIIa, yada, yada and farmers use it in their $500,000 combines and tractors without hesitation.

So, the results, noise level has been cut by 40 to 60% by my ear, not eliminated but much better, car shifts well no bad feel in the shifter or any new noises.
;
I will say first go around with this 2 weeks ago, 14-hours, 2nd time yesterday start to finish 5:20 minutes.
Still not silent, again it was NOT silent before changing it, but not sure what else to do, going to drive it for another few hundred miles and see how it goes.

Another note: I'm not 100% certain some noise isn't coming from the shifter itself.

Thanks a TON to Ed and J-Lo for sticking with me on this, we will see if I have it fixed or ????
 

JPIStang

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Thanks for sharing. Glad it worked out I the end. My problem is now I checked end play again (with a pretty new Mac gauge) and my end play is .0487, so I basically need a .048 shim to get in spec and that size doesn't seem to be made.

They keep pointing the finger at other possible problems. Which is fine I guess but highly unlikely that I went from a transmission with 57,000 miles, AMSOIL lubricated, that functioned perfectly and silently (aside from a hair of notchiness upshifting into 3rd), to a transmission with allll these other "excessive wear" problems. I can barely even tell where the stock input shaft gear was meshed with the counter gear!

They just don't want to even come close to admitting their part might be to blame. They also use PayPal which means I have no way of getting my money back. So I'm going to measure end play again for both the factory parts and the new parts, and if factory parts give me end play within spec then I can rule out transmission issues.
 
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bigwave

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Put your 2 smallest shims together and see how close you come. 2nd) make super certain you didn't leave a buhr or RTV or any contaminate on your mating surfaces, the tiniest amount will make a huge difference.

If you were about 2000 miles closer, I'd love to assists, just to see what I did and look and feel another one, not because I know anything!
 

JPIStang

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That'd be .061 of shim which would end up with preload. Which actually confused me, I always thought tapered roller bearings were supposed to have preload.

Well I have to seal the case, do you mean old rtv that didn't get cleaned off or in the race pockets?

They may be on to something. I put the factory shim and shaft back in and measured .0057 end play. Oddly enough, with the .043 shim in the kit, my stock input shaft would be at .0007 end play which is perfect. Maybe I SHOULD just order a 10 spline clutch disk. LOL I wonder if there's a shim on the mid plate, but I bet you'd have to nearly completely disassemble the tranny to get to it.
 

JPIStang

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Screw it, I'll try to overshim and see what the result is. With the consistency of measurements I'm getting it's not likely to work.
 

bigwave

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I can tell you, (right or wrong, so don't crucify me), both the guys that helped (over looked) my project and the guy from AMP, said they prefer an install to have a little preload. The guy, Mike, from AMP was a plethora of knowledge, says they are the only ones building this for the dodge Viper T56's now, and they run them in the Texas Mile on 1200 hp cars regularly.
Also, if all else fails, and you bought through PayPal, you do have a satisfaction guarantee from PayPal, but, you'd have to stop now and start that process, which may suck!
 
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bigwave

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For the record that would be my #1 assistant "J-Lo" in the picture under the car, and the two dudes laying on the floor are just my buddies!

Slap that Sum-Bee-Ach back together and see what you get, just as long as the input shaft still turns fairly easily, not locked or super stiff, I'd give it a go! Like I said above, it sounds like the norm for the corvette T56 guys and they seem to hold up just fine.
 

JPIStang

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haha I didn't see the pictures when I read it the first time. Must be nice to be able to STAND under the car!

I'm trying to find a .048 shim somewhere first. From what I read, supposedly overshimming can prevent lubrication from getting to the tapered roller bearing....though I can't see how that could be true, you'd have to literally crush it to do that.
 

bigwave

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I agree, seems to me, if the shaft will turn freely once assembled you are good to go, it has an oiler hole and the 2 grooves that allow oil to flow around the shim.
 

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