Loud 5th gear on my 89' 240

I recently bought an '89 240 wagon with 230,000 miles on it. It has a
little rust on the inside of the doors and under, but not much visible.
I replaced the exhaust when I got it and have about $1200 in it. My
question: The 5th gear makes a ratteling noise, and I was told that
the bearings are probably bad. I was quoted around $1000 to 'repair'
the transmission, which sounded like almost a rebuild. The car shifts
and drives fine in all gears, it just makes noise. Should I put money
into repairing the trans. or drive it until it croaks?

 

Drive it till it croaks.. I had an '82 Toyota Tercel that made
BADDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD bearing noise (old North/South first gen Tercel), and
it lasted 60K miles, and well, it never failed, I just sold it. It sounded
like there were a dozen marbles rolling around in a tumbler!!!

NO PROBLEMS!

Volvo?!?! Even less problems. Sure, it might explode, but, if you have $1K
burning a hole in your pocket, do it.. I wouldn't.

 

Probably not worth spending the money on, unless you do a complete
restoration (engine, transmission, body, interior, suspension etc.).

Just for the heck of it, change out the manual transmission fluid.

Can't hurt.

 

Drive it until it starts to sound worse, if that happens look for a good
used transmission and drop it in, it's not a huge project.

 

Yeah, those 5 speed transmissions like to be a little overfilled, that
will stop this problem from developing. Overfilling it slightly may
make it last longer in its current state. However if the bearing is
grinding itself up, then the transmission will be in a sad state pretty
quick, as it will grind itself up, filling the oil with metal particles.

--
Mike F.
Thornhill (near Toronto), Ont.

Replace tt with t (twice!) and remove parentheses to email me directly.
(But I check the newsgroup more often than this email address.)

 

$1,000 will probably get you a boneyard transmission. I doubt they
were going to take it apart.

It's very difficult to analyze noises over the internet because we all
interpret them differently. If it were me and the noise wasn't getting
any worse and it went into gear smoothly I would just live with it and
monitor the sound for any change.

 

Jeez, I paid $75 for one a few years back for my mom's car, had to pull
it myself though. The M47's seem to be showing up a bit more as the
later model 240s get older. If you're paying $1K for a used gearbox for
a car that's pushing up on 20 years old you got ripped off, may as well
buy a whole car for parts at that rate.

 

I'm sure that's the installed price from the dealer. Used boxes in
good condition in my experience go for a lot more than $75.00