P38 1999 2.5 diesel automatic transmission grinding?

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feyniriel

feyniriel

Active Member
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Finland
Hey, my automatic gearbox has been grinding in reverse for a while now, it also jolts quite rough when shifting gears and when driving it for 5+ hours without breaks it gives gearbox fault beep and goes into limp mode. We've filled it up with oil, when I bought the car there was 2 liters of oil missing for some reason. It's full of oil now, we checked multiple times. There's a small handbrake oil seal leak that I'll change, but after topping it off, it hasn't leaked for 5000+km. Could it just be needing a proper oil change? Going to a specialist soon to get it looked at, but kind of dreading if it might be an internal problem within the gearbox..

Has anyone had similar symptoms before?
 
feyniriel said:
Hey, my automatic gearbox has been grinding in reverse for a while now, it also jolts quite rough when shifting gears and when driving it for 5+ hours without breaks it gives gearbox fault beep and goes into limp mode. We've filled it up with oil, when I bought the car there was 2 liters of oil missing for some reason. It's full of oil now, we checked multiple times. There's a small handbrake oil seal leak that I'll change, but after topping it off, it hasn't leaked for 5000+km. Could it just be needing a proper oil change? Going to a specialist soon to get it looked at, but kind of dreading if it might be an internal problem within the gearbox..

Has anyone had similar symptoms before?
Click to expand...
Did you use the correct filling procedure? Engine and transmission cold, engine idling, move through all gears & back to neutral, top up until fluid just dribbles out of the filler plug or, if you have a dipstick is at the correct level on the stick.
Any oil in the transfer box?
 
Datatek said:
Did you use the correct filling procedure? Engine and transmission cold, engine idling, move through all gears & back to neutral, top up until fluid just dribbles out of the filler plug or, if you have a dipstick is at the correct level on the stick.
Any oil in the transfer box?
Click to expand...
We did it like that, except the engine and transmission weren't cold. We did drive it a bit before adding oil, it wasn't very hot though.
 
I think I will replace the gearbox oil altogether and change the filter to see if the sound and jerking gets better. Does anyone have a recommendation for the oil? Thanks!
 
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feyniriel said:
I think I will replace the gearbox oil altogether and change the filter to see if the sound and jerking gets better. Does anyone have a recommendation for the oil? Thanks!
Click to expand...
Dexron III is the recommended oil. The final fill must be done cold, the atf heats up very quickly, so your top up after driving is likely to mean the box is under filled.
 
We did an oil change on the gearbox. Out came around 5 liters of brown oil and we only managed to put in 5 liters. We did this while the gearbox was cold, went through all the "gears" multiple times until oil overflowed. Doesn't this seem like a small amount, shouldn't it take in way more oil? The dry capacity should be 9,7l. We only went through the gears on the high-range side, not the low-range but I understood that shouldn't make a difference.
 
feyniriel said:
We did an oil change on the gearbox. Out came around 5 liters of brown oil and we only managed to put in 5 liters. We did this while the gearbox was cold, went through all the "gears" multiple times until oil overflowed. Doesn't this seem like a small amount, shouldn't it take in way more oil? The dry capacity should be 9,7l. We only went through the gears on the high-range side, not the low-range but I understood that shouldn't make a difference.
Click to expand...
The other 5 litres is in the torque convertor and cannot be easily drained. It's best to do a second change after a couple of hundred miles. Lo Range affects only the transfer box. Was the engine idling when you did the final fill?
 
feyniriel said:
So the gearbox is still grinding in reverse..
Click to expand...
Somehow, I doubt it's the gearbox, maybe the whole lot is moving on the mounts when reversing and touching something. Another thought, does the parking pawl hold the car on a slope? Is the selector cable stiff? Does it grind if you go from Drive to Reverse or just from Park to reverse?
 
Datatek said:
Somehow, I doubt it's the gearbox, maybe the whole lot is moving on the mounts when reversing and touching something. Another thought, does the parking pawl hold the car on a slope? Is the selector cable stiff? Does it grind if you go from Drive to Reverse or just from Park to reverse?
Click to expand...
Ooh, good question 🤔
 
The car can be in park on a slope without handbrake and will not move. Grinding seems to happen both from park to reverse as well as from drive to reverse.
We tried reversing it a bit immediately after the oil change and didn't hear the grinding, then upon driving to town the grinding returned..
 
feyniriel said:
We did an oil change on the gearbox. Out came around 5 liters of brown oil and we only managed to put in 5 liters. We did this while the gearbox was cold, went through all the "gears" multiple times until oil overflowed. Doesn't this seem like a small amount, shouldn't it take in way more oil? The dry capacity should be 9,7l. We only went through the gears on the high-range side, not the low-range but I understood that shouldn't make a difference.
Click to expand...

Brown does not sound good. I'd be tempted to chick in some transmission fix, do 200 miles then change again. It'll take 2 or 3 changes to get all the brown out if it has been that bad.
 
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