Went over to see my new best friend today, the 81 year old who just got his first T. He had called a while back and told me he had gotten it to start, and today wanted me to drive it to show him how to handle personality. He had bought it out of an estate, there was a frame off resto done, body slapped back on to sell it.

Nice compression, it free starts just about all the time...lol lucky him.

Anyway, question for the crowd as I heard a sound I have never heard in now 4 decades of T's...

Think of the groan you hear sometimes in reverse as it bites...got that sound in your mind?

OK, so what does the exact same groan mean when you push the low-speed in and get rolling? I have never heard it on any other T. Other than this groan, it builds speed and stops groaning all together, runs fine from there.

OK, he also had about 6 quarts of oil in it...got that down after we had it out, didn't drive it again, but my mind keeps telling me that in low...nothing should groan! I thought at first it was the diffy resonating on the tube, but this is definately in the tranny.

Thanks

I would look at the rear axle lube to see if it is silver colored.......

Then check the drive shaft bushing and be sure it has grease.

Here's the silver lube Royce is talking about. The chunks are bits of babbitt washer.

I took apart 2 T rear ends that had been used as trailers, that is what the inside was coated with in one, the babbitt in the 2ed was still together on one side and in the bottom for the other side.

I have heard Ts groan like that in low gear as well as reverse. It was caused by mismatched triple gears. It would probably wear in and get quieter after a thousand miles or more. Don't push it hard as too much unbalanced pressure in the wrong place could shatter the drum gear. And put several good magnets in good places to catch steel filings.
The one that shocked me, was in my old green boat-tail. The engine was the wrong year and very tired. But the transmission worked beautifully! All the adjustments were just right. It shifted nice and was smooth and quiet. When I pulled the transmission out and set it on the driveway to inspect it, two of the triple gear pins fell out and dropped the triple gear into the wrong place.
Drive carefully, W2

Thanks guys,

Not knowing who rebulit Joes chassis and how, I was hoping it was just tight triple gears singing but the babbit point is well taken also.

I'll be heading back over to Joes soon so he can have a good driving lesson on 'getting into 3rd' as he calls it without it coughing on him

I'll finger test the diffy, and make sure he does a front to back good lube and we'll go from there.

Many restored trannys howl worse than before repair - guess it's a function of the gears wearning in to eachother with worn pins and a certain play in the bushings - with new pins and (too?) little play in the bushings, the gears now has to run in a new position to eachother, and howl, at least for a while. Many triple gear pins has broken or bushings seized from too little play so some caution is in order.

Howls and groans, on my! Maybe you have one of those haunted Model Ts we've been talking about.