H55f noise and glitter! (1 Viewer)

[Canadianmarty]

Hey guys, my Bj60 with 230,000km is running into a transmission issue. I just finished a 2300km road trip, and I started to notice a vibration while cruiser at certain rpm, pretty mild, like a stranger wouldn’t notice at all, but when you drive it all the time you notice subtle changes like that. Also, once it’s warmed up the transmission makes more noise in neutral, like if you’re parked beside a barrier and the sound comes back at you it’s pretty loud, sounds almost like a clacking with a whirring. When you push it the clutch it goes completely quiet, so I’m sure it’s not the motor. I pulled the drain plug to check and sure enough there is a decent amount of glitter in the oil. It’s not silver, more like clean oil with a tiny bit of shiny-super fine sand in it. I was using motul 80-90 synthetic gear oil, rated for both GL4 and GL5.
Im curious if any of you can give me a good idea of what’s likely wearing out in the transmission, and can I put a thicker oil in there and drive it for the summer before I tear it apart or is this thing totally untrustworthy and likely to leave me on the side of the road soon??

thanks for your help!!

 

[drenmaster]

Not sure about the vibration, but if its making a chirping noise with no pressure on the clutch pedal that goes away when put pressure on the clutch pedal its Probably the throwout bearing..

Whens the last time the oil was changed in the tranny? The glitter could be just from a lot of use over the years.

Is all that stuff original oem at 230k? If so Good time for a clutch job.

 

[Canadianmarty]

No it has a new clutch, it’s definitely not a chirp or squeak noise, oil was replaced less than a year ago with motul synthetic 80-90

 

[OSS]

It's not going to leave you stranded. My vote is drive it until you can't stand the noise it makes anymore then - REPLACE- it with s new one.

 

[Jestafool4hzj75]

@Canadianmarty I have a HZJ75 with the standard 1hz/H55F combo. I am facing a similar issue myself. (Maybe a bit more advanced in my case).
I believe you will have a h55 gearbox, not identical but quite similar.
I've done a ridiculous amount of thinking/visualisation to try to understand my issue. Also some research into the H55F box and what it likes.

Going by what the mud brains trust say and confirmed by my personal old-timer guru, you should use gl-4, not gl-4/gl-5. I know it seems crazy and here in Aus it's also more expensive, but your synchros are eventually broken down by the 4/5.
If you don't have a magnetic lug on the end of your drain plug, I'd suggest you get one. Pretty sure glitter from the synchros wouldn't stick to it, but that's data in itself.

My box seals and bearings are clearly shot. The output flanges wiggle around, it leaks from the seams, and in gear with the driveshafts disconnected it makes a very irregular grinding rumble in fourth and fifth.
Also, in gear, in any gear, with the clutch out, at a specific rpm (1700) there is a nasty loud rattle that sounds like an exhaust flange or a heat guard banging around, but believe me I have spent hours searching for anything like that. The sound comes from the area of gearbox/clutch.

My best guess is either that the throwout bearing has come out of its retaining clip, (although I would expect the noise to happen out of gear in that case) or the main internal shaft of the gearbox, (which spins at engine speed when the box is in gear) has flogged out a bearing quite completely.
About to replace gearbox/transfer with a reconditioned unit. I won't be pulling the box apart, but I'll advise how it goes and what I find.

 

[Canadianmarty]

@Canadianmarty I have a HZJ75 with the standard 1hz/H55F combo. I am facing a similar issue myself. (Maybe a bit more advanced in my case).
I believe you will have a h55 gearbox, not identical but quite similar.
I've done a ridiculous amount of thinking/visualisation to try to understand my issue. Also some research into the H55F box and what it likes.

Going by what the mud brains trust say and confirmed by my personal old-timer guru, you should use gl-4, not gl-4/gl-5. I know it seems crazy and here in Aus it's also more expensive, but your synchros are eventually broken down by the 4/5.
If you don't have a magnetic lug on the end of your drain plug, I'd suggest you get one. Pretty sure glitter from the synchros wouldn't stick to it, but that's data in itself.

My box seals and bearings are clearly shot. The output flanges wiggle around, it leaks from the seams, and in gear with the driveshafts disconnected it makes a very irregular grinding rumble in fourth and fifth.
Also, in gear, in any gear, with the clutch out, at a specific rpm (1700) there is a nasty loud rattle that sounds like an exhaust flange or a heat guard banging around, but believe me I have spent hours searching for anything like that. The sound comes from the area of gearbox/clutch.

My best guess is either that the throwout bearing has come out of its retaining clip, (although I would expect the noise to happen out of gear in that case) or the main internal shaft of the gearbox, (which spins at engine speed when the box is in gear) has flogged out a bearing quite completely.
About to replace gearbox/transfer with a reconditioned unit. I won't be pulling the box apart, but I'll advise how it goes and what I find.

thanks for the info! I've talk to so many "experts" the last couple days and there seems to be very little understanding of GL-4 and GL-5 oils. one cruiser expert that I talked to also suggested I go with GL4 only, so that is the plan.
I do have a magnet plug on it, and it was covered in very fine metal, the glitter in the oil was possibly from syncros but hard to say. the transmission still works fine, no leaks, no horrible noises, stays in gear. it just has that vibration, glitter, and slight noise in neutral (which is more than likely my throw out bearing). so ill be driving it for now, see if it gets worse over the summer and think about a rebuild in the fall.

 

[Jestafool4hzj75]

thanks for the info! I've talk to so many "experts" the last couple days and there seems to be very little understanding of GL-4 and GL-5 oils. one cruiser expert that I talked to also suggested I go with GL4 only, so that is the plan.
I do have a magnet plug on it, and it was covered in very fine metal, the glitter in the oil was possibly from syncros but hard to say. the transmission still works fine, no leaks, no horrible noises, stays in gear. it just has that vibration, glitter, and slight noise in neutral (which is more than likely my throw out bearing). so ill be driving it for now, see if it gets worse over the summer and think about a rebuild in the fall.

This is a good read regarding gear oil

http://www.widman.biz/uploads/Transaxle_oil.pdf

 

[Jestafool4hzj75]

Also Lucas and Morey's both have a product called 'oil stabiliser' which is a super sticky, stringy oil additive that will help you out. I haven't found any really solid data on whether it affects the softer metal components like the gl-5, but to tide you over to a rebuild it would be perfect.

 

[Canadianmarty]

Also Lucas and Morey's both have a product called 'oil stabiliser' which is a super sticky, stringy oil additive that will help you out. I haven't found any really solid data on whether it affects the softer metal components like the gl-5, but to tide you over to a rebuild it would be perfect.

I just phoned Lucas oil and they said their oil stabilizer is safe for yellow metals, no sulfer additives.
Their gear oils however are not safe just fyi

 

[Jestafool4hzj75]

Thanks for the heads up re Lucas, I usually use Morey's, maybe I should call them. Morey's recommend 15-25% for a manual gearbox, but I'd recommend 15-20%, more might be fine but also might make the gears a bit sticky when cold.

 

[georgebj60]

I keep reading this issue re: GL4 and GL5. But from the Toyota manual, both are fine, see attached from my ‘87 HJ60 owners manual, with an H55f. Not trying to start a new debate on this, but we all trust the Toyota engineers for pretty much everything else on these trucks.

 

[cps432]

What does the t case oil look like? My idler shaft was pretty beat up and it made quite a racket for 5-6 years until I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I thought it was the transmission making the noise but when I tore everything down it was obvious that the idler bearings were toast and was allowing the shaft to rock back and forth just a bit. Like I said, I drove for years like that. It made me nervous, no doubt... but these things are really beefy inside. They can handle quite a bit.

Does the sound change when you let off the gas? I had a rumble in all gears when in the drive position. When I would shift into neutral while coasting the noise would change from a rumble to a chatter like an unbalanced washing machine. That’s what the ider sounds like when it’s shot.

Hearing noises bouncing off the curb is typical. It used to bother me until I replaced my transmission and rebuilt the t case. I still hear noises now bouncing off the curb but I know everything is solid so I pay it little attention these days. A brand new land cruiser is a very noisy truck. A worn in land cruiser is a very very noisy truck.

Edit: Also, to touch on what George said above ^... 4 type is probably the best but Toyota says 5 is fine. There IS a reason people say not to use 5 with brass synchros. There is an additive in the 5 type that bonds to brass stronger than brass molecules bond to themselves. This isn’t such a problem unless you’re putting massive/excessive friction on the synchros. When the gl5 bonds to the brass and then is hit with heavy friction it has the potential to remove a few molecules of brass. This is chemistry and it happens. But I believe it’s such a negligible amount that you’ll never know unless you’re shifting at the wrong RPMs all the time. I think this whole theory really applies to race cars that are being heavily abused and really pushed to the limit and also require very very fine tolerances like you find in high end sports cars. Our fast tractors are more like a tank than a Maserati...

 

[Canadianmarty]

What does the t case oil look like? My idler shaft was pretty beat up and it made quite a racket for 5-6 years until I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I thought it was the transmission making the noise but when I tore everything down it was obvious that the idler bearings were toast and was allowing the shaft to rock back and forth just a bit. Like I said, I drove for years like that. It made me nervous, no doubt... but these things are really beefy inside. They can handle quite a bit.

Does the sound change when you let off the gas? I had a rumble in all gears when in the drive position. When I would shift into neutral while coasting the noise would change from a rumble to a chatter like an unbalanced washing machine. That’s what the ider sounds like when it’s shot.

Hearing noises bouncing off the curb is typical. It used to bother me until I replaced my transmission and rebuilt the t case. I still hear noises now bouncing off the curb but I know everything is solid so I pay it little attention these days. A brand new land cruiser is a very noisy truck. A worn in land cruiser is a very very noisy truck.

Edit: Also, to touch on what George said above ^... 4 type is probably the best but Toyota says 5 is fine. There IS a reason people say not to use 5 with brass synchros. There is an additive in the 5 type that bonds to brass stronger than brass molecules bond to themselves. This isn’t such a problem unless you’re putting massive/excessive friction on the synchros. When the gl5 bonds to the brass and then is hit with heavy friction it has the potential to remove a few molecules of brass. This is chemistry and it happens. But I believe it’s such a negligible amount that you’ll never know unless you’re shifting at the wrong RPMs all the time. I think this whole theory really applies to race cars that are being heavily abused and really pushed to the limit and also require very very fine tolerances like you find in high end sports cars. Our fast tractors are more like a tank than a Maserati...

Yeah the oil in the transfer case was clean, took the inspection plate off and the gears had no play, looked solid. Only The transmission had glitter in it. My guess is the bearings have some wear creating some play, I just changed the oil to mt90 and some Lucas oil stabilizer. I’ll keep my ears and feels for it and see if it gets worse over the summer