'01-S8

Well I finally got my car back a few days ago from my whole fuel pump, destroyed head, new motor saga....and she is running like a champ!!

Now as so many of us know, some of these transmissions can be ticking time bombs... some die at 50k, some at 150, and then there are people who are like me who are upwards of 200k and still on OG trans!

My trans feels absolutely beautiful 96.4592% of the time.... but every now and then she raises my eyebrows a tad....

One symptom I have is that while slowly accelerating or driving, you can hear a whine coming from what sounds like the trans. As you go faster, it whines faster. Honestly to me it sounds like the flywheel?? Anyone else hear this??

All shifts accelerating and decelerating are super smooth, and single gear changes are the same. However, for example, if i am driving at 40 mph in a 45 mph zone bc Grandma is in front me and I give it a bit of gas to accel (2 step downshift from 5th to 3rd.. in D) she gives a little thump and then gets right to goin...im going to take a look at the diff bushings after i took a read at this thread. (https://www.audiworld.com/forums/sho...php?p=15581220)
If I have the car in tiptronic and downshift and accel no problems at all...all shifts and gear changes are good... only when it is a 2 gear-step shift...


I had just recently (before car died Oct 11') done a flush/filter/and fill on trans....

If you are nice to her while driving, you wouldnt even start to think about it, let alone twice. Im hoping she will treat me well for a while!!!

Any advice, ideas, or comments are welcome!!

Thanks AW!

silverd2

Don't really no any specifics about other "symptoms" you mentioned.

Your car doesn't actually have a flywheel, but in the bell housing of the trans (near motor) is the torque converter, which bolts to the engine's "drive disc" (kind of a flywheel/toothed starter ring).

Anyway, under the torque converter, at the front of the trans, is the ATF pump...sometimes a notorious noise-maker...some have called it the "D2 Kazoo". A restricted atf filter can overwork the pump causing it to whistle/whir/whine...this is why Tozo recommends cutting off part of the pick-up tube on a new filter installed (they are very close to the bottom of the pan...I measured about 7mm on mine with correct OEM filter).
Also some can make noise due to "cavitation"...air bubbles in the fluid, sometimes caused possibly by overfilled trans foaming the oil...or even overheated or contaminated atf(?)

...But many tend to make noise with age (not really "failed"), no matter what...esp at cold idle and low speed.
Mine has for a long time (at least the last 50-60K miles), before and after I did my own atf/filter service...without a restricted filter or over-filling.
Mine's a fairly quiet whistle/whir that I only hear at idle and low revving (not past 1500rpm) in P or N, which gets higher pitched with rpm...nothing once I'm moving...I've just accepted it, since the trans works at 100% in all respects..never a thump, slip or hard shift...esp after changing the atf filter, which cured occasional hard downshifts from 2nd to 1st.

If it's more of a pronounced whine, similar to a dry power steering pump, the problem may be severe...mine sounds nothing like that.

tozoM8

It is an installation error. When they bolted the motor/trans together they did not pushed the TC against the flex plate, they used the 3 TC bolts to pull the TC. It creates a tension in the flex plate. The only way to fix it to loosen the 3 bolts and re-tighten them.

silverd2

Interesting....So is the tension causing the whine, by pulling on the TC, creating strain on the pump?

..or is the tension causing the thump symptoms?

...or both?

Prospeeder

Get the fluid and filter changed.....Its probably original. Fluid could be low or the filter oring bad and sucking air, BMW transmissions, made by the same manufacture, have the same wineing issues. Its related to the filter.

silverd2

See post #1...already done.
He just had an engine installed...symptoms/noise started then, I believe(?)

Prospeeder

I swear that wasn't there when i posted lol, but if they used a cheap branded filter they apparently whine after a few thousand miles. O-ring is thinner or doesn't hold up as well. And he didn't say he thought the noise was from the work. Or that it wasn't there before.

'01-S8

The whining noise WAS present before engine work.... i did the filter and fluid swap already... The whining did become more prevalent after the filter and fluid change i believe. I got the kit from BlauParts.

Messing with the TC involves dropping the whole trans, doesnt it...??

whatever is going on i need to figure it out because it feels like its not getting any better.

before any of this work was done the ONLY time i ever had a thumped shift or any issues was 1 or two times on hard accel....

help me out guys....

'01-S8

THIS!??!?!?

Is this causing the thump or the whine???

how do i go about getting to those bolts!!!!

silverd2

If it is the TC bolts (and Tozo has forgotten more than I'll ever know about trans's), which I can understand, the starter has to be removed to access those. Unfortunately, removing the starter on a D2 is like pulling your own wisdom tooth with bolt cutters ( I may exaggerate a bit).
I've never done it, but 1 method (as I recall) involves dropping the sub-frame partially and another involves removing 1 of the motor mounts(?).
I can understand the theory...3 bolts that hold the TC to the flex plate...If the TC was not completely flush before torquing the bolts, and (worst case) the 1st bolt was turned all the way down, to plull the TC to the plate (or visa versa), it could **** so that the other 2 would not even out the stress.