Not happy with my "new" transmission

[theluckyone17]

I'm an idiot.

I must've spent a good hour tromping through the junkyard on Monday, looking for a manual transmission for my 2006 Baja. I cross referenced the transmission chart, made sure the final drive was the same, blah blah blah. Looked for donor cars with obvious reasons for being in the yard other than the transmission.

I came across a 2001 Forester. Plaque said the engine was bad, tranny was good.

Now I swear I pulled the drain plug, looking for obvious chunks of metal. Common sense, right? I will admit that I looked at a few trannies as I wandered the yard, and maybe I just thought I pulled the drain plug on this one. Maybe I didn't. I swear I did, but nobody's infallible.

Anyway, I was going over the transmission tonight, since we broke one of the four bolts off that mount it to the crossmembers (not a big deal, ought to drill out fairly easily). Pulled the drain plug, and I found this (pic taken after I cleaned it up):



Now, if I could kick myself in the butt, I would be. Again, maybe I missed this plug. Maybe the chunk fell down to the plug at some point, as we were yanking the transmission around. Regardless, it's there now, and I have to deal with it. I'm going to guess from the slight curvature of that piece that it's a cage from one of the bearings. The way the ends are bent makes me think it got chewed up from the gears, so God only knows what else is chewed up, too.

I'm thinking I'll be exchanging the transmission next Monday, and pulling a new one. Yard is a good two hours away, and I'm really not looking forward to driving back and spending another few hours wrenching underneath another parts car.

[Hawk296]

That's a real bummer! My guess is that you probably did check it, and that this piece was worked loose and fell down during removal, transportation or the cleanup process and was then caught by the magnet on the plug.

What happened to the original transmission in your baja?

[theluckyone17]

Real loud mid range whine at in town speeds... about 30-45 mph. Changes with road speed, not RPM, so I know it's not anything related to the input shaft. I had the local garage put it up on the lift; they confirmed it's in the transmission and not the rear diff or wheel bearings. It would cook gear oil quickly, too, so something was getting hot in there.

I pulled the rear housing off the old transmission, and confirmed that the center differential/transfer case bearings are fine. That leads me to believe it's a bearing on the output shaft.

Rather than rebuild it, I figured I'd roll the dice and try a junkyard transmission. I don't think the dice came up sevens or elevens, this time around. I'm debating whether I want to try slapping it in and see what it sounds like as a temporary band-aid until I find a better transmission, or whether to just exchange it now and roll the dice again.

[KzooBaja]

I'm really wanting to do an automatic to 5-speed swap..... What is this trans chart your speaking of?...