Can you rebuild a NV4500 yourself?

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nat

nat

Joined
Sep 20, 2005
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1,990
Location
Los Gatos, California
So my NV4500 died on the way home from SnT yesterday. It went from running smooth to kicking out of gear, then it blew blue smoke through the top and started making shrieking bearing noises. I immediately pulled off the freeway and took the top off the tranny. There was oil in the tranny, but the level was obviously too low. No gear oil could be found so I added motor oil, figuring s*** can't get much worse. I was still 120 miles from home and didn't want to pay that tow charge. The motor oil kept things lubricated enough and cool enough to get home. Only 4th gear was smooth enough to use, so we cruised at 50mph the whole way.

Obviously the tranny needs to be rebuilt. Is this something that can be done in a home shop or am I stuck sending it to a transmission shop? Anyone done it? Any good shops in the SF Bay Area? I originally got the unit and adapter from Advanced Adapters.
 
You can rebuild them. I think it's still relatively expensive for the parts, but certainly cheaper than having a shop do it. One issue common to most transmissions is having/making the correct tools required for disassembly. I think I have a pdf version of the rebuild manual. I'll try to find it and post it.

I understand that if you don't use the exact oil specified for the tranny, that the carbon fiber synchros will self-destruct. Have you been running the expensive stuff exclusively?
 
I have done a few of them now Nat. Depending on how hot things got with your transmission, you may be money ahead finding a unit that is already rebuilt and turning yours in for the core charge.
 
Turns out the pdf manual I have is copy protected. I bought it as an electronic download from this guy: http://4x4repairmanuals.com/nv4500manuals.html

It's a very good reference and it might be worth the $20 to you just to help make the rebuild or replace decision. I think he has all of the needed parts, also, if you decide to rebuild.
 
Doesn't sound good but I wonder if you could try running it a bit longer and see what happens. Cost is $60 in oil ((P/N 715690) | Advance Adapters). If you plan to rebuild or replace anyway you won't loose much. If you ran it 150 miles home running it another few hundred likely won't hurt anything else. But use some caution. Blue smoke could've been a seal in which case it leaks but rebuilding what you have makes a little more sense if the bearings and gears are ok. You'll know soon enough. Take off a PTO cover, let oil drain out and have a look. If no obvious metal falls out, and it looks reasonable put a rare earth magnet on the inside of the PTO cover (just in case) and RTV it back on (RTV black). The synchros probably didn't disintegrate but probably won't shift well after running on dino oil. I have read online elsewhere that the shifting came back after adding the right oil. Who knows. Then again it depends on how many miles are on the tranny. If it had less than 50K miles I'd work harder to salvage it, more than 150K I'd probably be thinking new/rebuild.

BTW, you might already know this but overfill by 0.5 - 1 qt. A lot of places recommend it, including quad4x4 (previous link for the pdf manual). AA sells 5 qts at a time for that reason. I was running 4 qts and added 1 more a few weeks ago before a trip to death valley. Shifted much smoother.
 
Interesting suggestion, but the sounds were like tortured bearing noises. Popping a side cover off is easy enough. There is less than 50K on the tranny.
 
Poser said:
I have done a few of them now Nat. Depending on how hot things got with your transmission, you may be money ahead finding a unit that is already rebuilt and turning yours in for the core charge.
Click to expand...

I would imagine the most difficult part is setting the bearing pre-loads correctly?
 
Nat,
If you do decide to have someone else rebuild it. i have a friend here in redwood city that is a transmission guy, and does side work a lot! His dad used to be the owner of the tranny shop on Old County in San Carlos.

He usually gives good prices for the work he does.
 
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