78 SERIES TROOPY POSSIBLE CLUTCH

Hi Bob Y, thank you for the reply.

Sorry should have given the obvious info, well she is 2006 young, 193000kms 1HZ non turbo engine.
Definitely leaking from bell housing and its the transmission oil. Vibration is in all gears and only when under load ie, when accelerator pedal pressed, when I release the accelerator and still in gear the vibration stops. In terms of vibration it is only very light not heavy that rattles the car or anything.Vibrations stops when clutch is pressed in. The leak is only small at the moment, like a 3cm ring.

Last week the mechanic checked all the oils and were all OK, told him to also check diff oils and they were good too.

"Light vibration" would be par for the course on a troopy of that vintage & mileage, Troopi. :-)

The R151 gearbox behind the 1HZ are notoriously weak, but in all fairness, some seem to last much better than others. I'd also be checking items like rear pinion bearings for looseness, uni joints(need greasing, or binding ie: need replacing), t/case output shaft bearings, rear gearbox output shaft nut(inside t/case, possibly need tightening) and front driveshaft and diff. Front diffs are a bit weak, especially when they've been worked hard.

Are you driving around town with the front hubs locked in?

The oil leak doesn't sound too bad at this stage, but imagine it will contaminate the friction plate sooner or later. Do a bit of research on cost of replacement g'box/t'case unit(and clutch) as opposed to rebuilding your transmission. I replaced a g'box/t'case in an HJ60 some years back, cost $3800. Have seen similar(about $4K) for later model units, over past 12 months.

There are a number of blokes on this site who are far more qualified to comment than I am on your problem/s. They might help you in due course. In the meantime, just keep driving it......you probably don't have to worry till it starts making grinding noises. :-)

Bob

Thanks again Bob Y,

Probably wont need to go and change boxes just yet, will wait next week and see what the mechanic sais once he has a good look at it.
Dont have the hubs locked that's for sure, I do lock them and run for about 15-20 k's too lubricate front end if I have not been off-roading for a while. In the meantime I will check the rest of the items you mentioned above, never thought of that.
Now that I have noticed the leak I will also be checking the transmission oil level just to be safe it does not fall dangerously low (that's when the grinding starts).

Could possibly be spigot bearing and/or input shaft bearing and seal.

If your troopy has less than 200,000 on the clock and considering the gearbox fitted to that vintage vehicle and the fact that the leaking transmission oil started about when you noticed the vibration I would say Frank would be pretty close with his guestimate. For the front seal on the input shaft to start leaking either the seal has just given up the ghost (unlikely for that milage) or the input bearing is getting a bit dodgy and allowing the shaft to drop. If the input shaft has dropped, the input shaft gears that mesh with the layshaft aren't in propper contact. If this is what is happening and you keep driving, particularly if giving it a bit of hard acceleration, the results could be a bit nasty cost wise. Not to mention leaving you stranded.
I would at very least drop the gearbox oil, have a good look at what comes out for any metalic particles and inspect the magnetic plug for bits that should be inside the gearbox.

Cheers
Pop

Thanks pop2jocem.
I was hopeing it wasent that bad but to give you some history as to what may have caused either seal or bearings is the drive i did a few weeks ago from Rockhampton to Sydney, on the way down i got a tyre blow out at just under 100k.s the whole car shook violently thought the whole rear end had come off, this may have contributed in some ways i would imagine. Today i was driving it home from work about a 30 min drive i did notice a slight vibration and when it did happen i tested the clutch by pressing my foot down and the vibration went away released the clutch and it was back on. After about 2 min driving the vibration stopped and got home after that with no vibrations at all. I made sure not to over load it when the vibration kicked in but after it was gone it was fine just like a troopy should handle. I will take your advise and drop the oil and check it out for any metal probably tomorrow if i get time. Anyway got another car i can get to work in the meantime until the mechanic checks it out in the new year. Thanks for your input.

The vibration coming in when the clutch is released, shows the likely source as the gearbox input shaft (or clutch shaft, as it's sometimes called).
The greatest single source of problems and failures in Japanese gearboxes, is in the needle roller bearing that fits in the end of the input shaft, inside the gearbox.
The mainshaft fits into the input shaft here, and is supported by that needle roller bearing.

That needle roller bearing in most Japanese gearboxes is light duty - it operates with close tolerances, as far as needles-to-shaft clearances go - and it's generally the first bearing in the gearbox to fail.

When they start to fail, the mainshaft starts to jump around inside the gearbox, creating vibration - as the front end of the mainshaft is no longer held in position very securely.
The next thing that happens is the needle rollers start to break up and then they fall out and get mixed up with rotating teeth on the gears - and they get mixed up with the rotating balls and rollers in the other bearings.

By that stage, the gearbox is making LOTS of grinding and crunching and grating noises - and it's not long before you have total gearbox failure.
You can cheack on gearbox condition fairly easily by draining off a little gearbox oil when its cold.
Oil with a "silver paint look" is not a good sign and indicates failure is not far off, as there are many metal particles being shed.

Oil with tiny chunks of metal in it, shows that bearings have already started to fail in a big way, and that gearbox failure is going to happen, VERY shortly.

You can buy drain plugs that have a magnet built into them - these are very useful as an indicator of gearbox and diff condition.
Oil should basically be pretty clean and only slightly discoloured.
Badly discoloured oil, accompanied by a pungent burnt smell, indicates the oil has been running at too high a temperature, due to insufficient oil, or overloading coupled with high ambient temperatures - and this will harden seals and produce oil leaks.

Cheers, Ron.