Transaxle Failure

The nice thing about working outside in the cold is that when you cut your knuckles, they don't bleed until you get inside and warm up.

Tom

 

Pah, it's not cold until you drop a spanner and it breaks, now that's cold.

 

I've snapped them with my bare hands. Well, not bare hands, but gloved hands.

Tom

 

I know you'll be pretty busy but I am interested in the axle seals and evidence of dirt/grit having gotten in via that path.

The reason is oil testing has shown two distinct patterns of elevated Si / Al. We know some of the Si comes from leaching the case sealant. However, there are three samples from dusty areas that show elevated Si / Al levels. The hypothesis offered by the testing service is possible dirt/grit contamination.

Thanks,
Bob Wilson

 

Great work, and glad you stopped by Claremont. I used to hang out with those guys

 

Job mostly done but where are the pictures of bleeding knuckles, grunting, sweating and blue hands?

 

My local tip has an oil recycling collection. It is reprocessed to make lube and heat oils.

 

did you not take apart the old transmission to see if there is anything wrong there?
or are you still going to do that

 

Excellent progress and a 10 hour day!

Looking at this photo, the parking paw motor assembly is larger than I thought it would be:

So the driver side (vehicle left hand side) seal failed filling the boot with transaxle oil:


Then normal road dirt mixed with the transaxle oil in the boot and simply passed back into the transaxle when it cooled. With the NHW11, there is a one-way, vent plug that lets the air out when the transaxle heats up. When it cools, the vent closes and having a negative pressure, it would suck in the oil-dirt back in from the boot.

You might want to check the dimensions of the driver side shaft. The oil/dirt/grit mixture probably worked like a lapping compound with what remained of the shaft seal. Given the likely need for a tight seal, you may want to consider a replacement shaft. For sure, look for any surface imprefections that might have hassened the failure.

Great work and photos! Thanks!

Bob Wilson

 

I can't understand how trans oil gets into the CV joints?

 

Thanks for sharing the photos and congratulations on making so much progress on Saturday. It is raining here in OC as of this writing, hope that you don't have too much snow falling in your area.

If you are planning to rebuild the axle that fell apart, that demonstrates ability that goes well beyond average. I think that most would probably just buy a new or salvage axleshaft assembly.

I'm glad that you made so much progress without incurring injury, hope that you'll find your car is running smoothly with a new transaxle.

While the engine air filter housing is off, may I suggest that you look at the throttle body interior and throttle plate and clean any black soot off those parts. You can rotate the spring-loaded throttle shaft when the car is IG-OFF. This is a common problem area resulting in engine nostart issues.

 

The input damper clutch was mentioned early in this thread, and
there's nothing obviously wrong in your pictures of it. Interestingly,
yours seems to have plain white plastic spring seats rather than the
colored ones; compare your IMG_6995.JPG versus this shot from one
of the training runs [which admittedly is of a Classis transaxle
instead, maybe the part actually changed in the NHW20]. Can you
see any "clutch dust" around there that would indicate that it was
slipping or misbehaving? Normally it's probably supposed to not
slip at all or only during unusual torque transitions between engine
and driveline, and it would probably have to be in pretty rough shape
to trigger severe enough rev mismatches between engine and the MGs
to throw a code. The surrounding flange from your old transaxle
seems pretty clean, where if this thing was a real clutch in the
traditional sense you'd probably have a thick coating of dust there.
.
Fascinating stuff. Your work area is starting to look like a murder
scene with all the reddish-pink splatter around... I guess there's
no way this can't be a messy job for the most part.
.
How were your CV boots? Any chance of the proposed dirt ingestion
having come through the axle seals, which do seem like a fairly
vulnerable part in the right rough conditions?
.
By the way, if you were to save your resized pix at 90% quality instead
of the maximum you're using now, you could halve their file-sizes with
little or no degradation in visual quality, esp. for this purpose. They
would then download faster...
.
_H*

 

Keep those photos coming. Excellent work!

 

Wonderful! Sounds great!

Bob Wilson

 

i wonder how the ratio of quoted cost to have a mechanic do the job to the cost if you were paid your normal hourly rate of pay to do it would look?
Good on you for getting that done! Great to hear it's running well, I bet when your driving it you feel proud!

 

It's been quiet here for a few days. I wonder if Bob is having probs with the new transaxle?