In May of 2005 I bought my first Amazon. It was a running 1967 Wagon that I drove from Houston TX to St. Louis MO. Aside from being 500,000+ miles worn, it had lost first gear, but was otherwise solid. It came from the original owner with a large store of new and salvage parts, some nice IPD upgrades, and replacement bodywork - which was why I bought it. I drove it almost all the way home before I lost 2nd and 3rd gear as well. The gearbox leaked at the top seal, so it was no surprise that I lost those gears enroute. The wagon came with two replacement m40s, so it was no real problem aside from the actual replacement procedure.

I tell you this so that you know my total experience with dead and dying M40 gearboxes

Fast-forward to the present. My 68's M40 just started to make a low r-r-r-r, croaking-type, faint, dull clicking noise in 1st, second, and third gear. It runs fine, but I can tell that something is going wrong. I have no experience is the loss of the initial gears, but I have a good sense of what happens when the two middle gears go.

Since the noise started I've topped up the gearbox "juice" but it has done nothing to help. The noise first appeared last week and is present only when the car is in gear. It still drives just fine, but this noise suddenly appeared and I suspect that it means another gearbox swap is in my near future.

Does anyone have any knowledge or insight into the failure sequence of an M40? Does that sound like what is happening? Could it be something else? Can I do anything to slow the failure until more benign weather arrives?

Thanks as always.