Hi all. I have a distinctive hiss/whirr coming from my gearbox when in neutral. I assume its the gearbox anyways, as the noise vanishes when i depress the clutch.

Gearboxes confuse me, however I'm relatively mechanically-minded and generally a fast learner. Being unemployed and skint at the moment, I can't afford to send it away to get looked at, so is there anything I can check myself that might help to narrow down/fix the problem?

My dad tells me it was a good gearbox when it went on 6 years ago before I got it, but his definition of 'good' is that the lever moves quite freely between the gates...

Hope someone can help, and PLEASE don't tell me to just send it away for a rebuild (Viking! ) - its utterly beyond my means just now.

Noisy thrust bearing

Thanks for the reply, but that means absolutely nothing to me. I couldn't even tell you where it is.

Do you mean to check it? replace it? Paint it green with red dots?

Sounds more like a noisy input shaft bearing which means a gearbox strip But if it is the input shaft bearing it may go on for ages yet.

input bearing - which can let go spectacularly when they want to ( usually at maximum inconvenience like getting on the IOM ferry)

quiet lay-by you know the rest...

( have you adjusted the clutch recently? if its happened after that then thrust bearing - so back it off a bit. plenty spare dyane boxes here as well new input bearings if not)

Not adjusted the clutch, but if I'm honest I do tend to ride it a bit. Hope that's not caused problems.

You reckon a swap/repair is the best bet for now? I'll bring the biscuits if so

And Sean, if it ever comes to that point I'll even let you throw the match

nope not even for biscuts took a couple of hours the other week to do a g'box swap and that was with my partner in grime Ron, we work so well together its telepathic. That was in a nice clean, spacious, well equipped, professional garage ( with heat). Im not getting a divorce because there is another rusty hulk on the drive for a whole weekend or more. AND more importantly Im not doing my back in as its on the verge of a collapse again.
You can come over and ill let you have a new input shaft bearing at cost (£12.37)and show you what to do with the gearbox that's on the bench. Buy one yourself (12.37+PP) and open the Haynes to chapter 5 ( its actually quite good on the gearbox!),or you can come hand over some cold hard cash and take a Dyane box away to swap on your own drive in the rain and wind and probably sleet.

M'faid i've got to look after myself or Spain will be a no go and ill be unable to work for 3 months again.

Whatever happened to the days you could tempt people with a packet of digestives?

No worries mate, I'll fire you a PM and we can arrange something