Aurelia noisy gearbox

Appia, Aprilia, Ardea, Artena, Astura, Augusta, Belna, Aurelia, Dilambda, Lambda and earlier
Florent

Aurelia noisy gearbox

Unread post by Florent »

Hello,

I am achieving the restoration of a 5th serie B20 and as the car is just back on the road, I can cleary hear that there is a problem with the gearbox (later type, the big one) wich is very, very noisy, especially on top gear but probably due to speed.
The only job I made on the gearbox was changing most of the bearings (as one of them had started machining the shaft it was fitted on), but I did not change any of the washers that adjust the gap between pinion and crown, they all have been kept in place as I supposed that the car was correctly running before stopping, 20 years ago. I feel like the noise is due to a wrong gap between pinion an crown but am I right ?

The gearbox is noisy when pushing the car but not on engine braking.

All gears are easy to engage.

Before disposing the gearbox, and starting the adjustment as described in the technical datas, I would greatly appreciate to hear from those of you would have any experience on such problem (maybe not only on Aurelias)

Many thanks in advance

Best regards

Florent
Jean de Barsy

Re: Aurelia noisy gearbox

Unread post by Jean de Barsy »

We had an old gearbox rebuilt on a 1930 REO Royale. It is very important to mark the sprockets as they must be repositionned in exactly the same way as they wear together. If you don't do this, you'll probbaly hear a whine when the car is running. Apart from this annoying noise, bear in mind that the sprockets are wearing fast too. The noise will lessen if the car is frequently used, but that will be wear! I think these points might be involved:

- Wrongly positionned sprockets
- Wrong tolerances
- Wrong oil or low oil level
Florent

Re: Aurelia noisy gearbox

Unread post by Florent »

Dear Jean,

Thanks for your help on this topic.
As I posted this thread more than two years ago, I have to tell you about the job done since then : when dismantling the gearbox once more, we noticed that the crown and the pinion were worn (especially on one side of the crown's teeth, that's why the noise was different on engine braking).
Looking for a set of crown and pinion, we were offered a Flaminia gearbox, drum brakes type, so we choosed to fit this gearbox on the car wich is now equiped with a Flaminia gearbox but still has it's original brakes (we made the modification on the gearbox casting to fit the original Aurelia brakes). We also had to make a conversion to a mechanical clutch command.
It was a lot of work but the car has done about 6000 km since then without any trouble and no more noise !

Original gearbox is beside the car and who knows, maybe one day I'll find parts and time to solve the problem and fit it back on "it's" car.

Best regards

Florent
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