MTFCA Forum

We're getting a whine out of the transmission when depressing the low speed pedal. High speed and reverse do not produce this noise.

Any ideas on what the source of this may be and necessary fix?

Is that noise a whine or a whirr. When you shift into low with the low speed pedal it does have a whirring sound that’s not loud but it’s there. To me that’s normal.

Is there someone close to you that has a T so you can compare? All T’s don’t sound exactly alike but pretty close. When a T transmission is rebuilt sometimes mis matched triple gears are used and that can cause a different sound than what your use to.

When you first bought your car did it have the whine sound?

More like a loud groaning than a whirr. We bought our 1921 touring back in May of 2020 and I don't recall anything than noticeable at the time.

Unfortunately I don't know of any other Ts in my area (Naperville outside of Chicago). Best I can do is to listen to other Ts in those driving videos and I have not heard anything like it from those cars.

It's what they do

you're fortunate it's only low, as both reverse and low are exercising the planetary gears and typically sound like an old electric trolley (if you've ever heard one of those )

Welcome to the hobby and welcome to the Forum

If it were in the differential, it would whine in all gears. If only in low, depending on how loud it is, might be a problem or not. If it were in the triple gears it would likely be also in neutral or reverse. They are all more noisy than some other cars because the teeth are cut straight across. I would suspect that maybe at some time in the past the low gear drum was cracked. This is the most common place where a drum would crack. Someone replaced that drum and gear with it used drum and gear. So the wear pattern on the two gears does not match. Unless it is extremely loud you do not have a problem.
Norm

Your second post implies the noise has changed for the worse.

Its the tripple gears. Check the slop in the bushings. Pull the transmission access cover & wiggle the gears one @ a time with a large screwdriver. Check teeth condition visually. If your inspections dont show glaring wear/looseness, this noise level may be normal.
Do make sure you dont have one of the other 2 bands rubbing when using low.
Engaging 2 pedals @ time hurrys this wear progression. A common problem of big feet using the reverse pedal.

Tripple gear noise has a common noise progression.
A fresh rebuild will be a bit noisier @ first. As the gears wear in again they get quieter.
At a point of heavy wear, they start getting noisier. Then noisier. Then if too worn, the teeth get chewed up. @ this point they run very loud, like a cement mixer.

Those driving videos magnify the sounds to sound much worse than in person. I dont see them being useful here.