I can't say I didn't have plenty of warning.

The M47 5-speed in my 92 244 daily driver let go Tuesday night. A long drive back from Boston, 1AM after a (bad) Red Sox game... I-95... in 5th gear.

The trans has had ongoing whiny noise problems since I got the car 5 years ago. It's been getting noticeably worse lately. At first it was whining in 3rd and 5th. It had gotten to 1-2-3 and 5th, and getting pretty loud on the highway. You could change the pitch of the noise with acceleration and deceleration.

So it finally started getting quite loud and vibrating, quickly increasing to a shake that forced me to slow down, push in the clutch, and drop into neutral. Revved in neutral, still very noisy.

I tried 4th and with a strong pull and a crunch, it went in. Continued the next hour and a half in 4th at 60, noisy but made it home with no incident. Failure mechanism was very very similar to my brother's 90 245, at 299K, 2 years ago.

Now I'm calling around trying to find another trans, and no luck. I don't want to rebuild it, I want to pull it, replace the clutch, install the good one, and go.

If anyone has a source for one, near Connecticut, please email me at schwinn_sting_rays@snet.net ...

Thanks!

--Rob
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~ 92 244 M47 modified ~ 89 244GLT Turbo Conversion ~ 90 745T Auto ~ And a VW Bus~