hello civic people!


so i just bought my first civic yesterday. a 1994 civic sedan 5spd.181k miles. pics to come later when the weather breaks with a little sunshine and i can clean ehr up. brand new paint, mint interior, the motor and tranny are great. however the differential has gone bad. or so i think. when in any gear and accelerating i hear a really bad grinding noise. when going 50mph+ such as on the freeway the noise is gone or inaudible. the actual performance isnt affected as far as i can tell. my mechanic already took a look and was the one who told me it was the diff.

so my question is, should i do a whole tranny swap? replace the diff? rebuild?


so to recap:

engine runs normal, clutch is fine, transmission shifts smooth. just the differential supposedly makes this grinding noise.


oh, and also the previous owner said he recently replaced the axles and CV joints, which is evident from the new looking axles and axle grease in the bay, and the alignment is way off. i'm suspect that this is why the differential has gone bad.


thanks for any info

i would swap the tranny its not that expensive for those cars. you may pay more to fix the diff and shit when you can just swap out the whole thing. less time, less money and less labor.

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i found a 98 ex tranny here on TJ. 135 shipped from NH. i'll probably take it once i get paid either tomorrow or tuesday. it'll be a nice upgrade gearing ratio wise.

awesome.

hey, I saw you were trying to get a hold of me on aim the other day. whats up?

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its cool. jon helped me out instead with a civic trans question i had.

you bitches are FINALLY responding to my thread...

I saw the thread when you found the trans for sale. really wasnt any need to reply here. fuckface

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well maybe my problem didnt require a whole new tranny vagina-ass.

whole new tranny was porbably cheaper than the alternative in replacing the the diff and what have you.

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yeah. i ws reading and looking at a tranny removal and tear down to replace the ISB and getting to the diff looks like a real bitch.

a buddy of mine had a similar issue... all the guy at the transmition shop told him to do was drain the tranny oil and replace it with a heavier weight oil. i know it worked cause i now have that tranny in my civic, but i'm not sure if his issue was with the diff... i would at least give that a try though, its the least labor intensive option i can think of, and if it doesn't work all u're out is the cost of the oil. that tranny will hold either 1 1/2 or 2 quarts.

yeah, that idea has already crossed my mind. as for your friends issue, how loud was the noise? for me its really loud at low speeds.

and also you said replace the tranny oil, but isnt the diff using it's own seperate oil? for some reason when i read the integra manual im remembering that it said the diff had its own spot for filling it with fluid. so yeah, not sure if that applied to D series, or if im even completely wrong about the integra.

i don't know how loud it was... i was never in the car with him while it was making the noise. i'm not too sure if the diff uses its own oil or not. as far as i know, there's only 1 fill for tranny fluid on my tranny. and i've had it in and out of my hatchback like 3 or 4 times. but i do know for a fact that it fixed the problem, because its the tranny that is in my car. and it makes NO noise... (that isn't normal anyway.)

ever figure out what ur problem was?

not really "figured out" what it was. its pretty bad so i already have a replacement transmission. weather has been bad lately so i've been driving the civic around like that anyways.

my guesses are still the differential, or a bearing of some kind.