FS5W71C Gearbox

[Wade]

Hey everyone,

I bought my WD21 Terrano to use as a cheap run around and to tow my race car.
It wasnt until after buying it and spending a wee bit of money on it that i found out the gearbox is a bit weak for towing.
The total load i would be doing would be approx 1500kg.

From my understanding it is the bearings that die from being overloaded but i need to know a few other things.

- Will i have a bit of warning (lots of bearing noise etc) when the gearbox is starting to go bad or will it just break?

- After rebuilding it with new bearings etc would it be strong enough to do a fair bit of towing?

- If i only put large amounts of load in 4th gear (being 1:1) will this alleviate the problem?

- What sort of weight do i need to be towing to start having to worry about it?

- Are there any relatively easy gearbox swaps you can do to fix the issue (QD32 Gearbox / late model TD27 Box etc)

[Crash bandicoot]

Few years ago there was a service advisory put out to fill gearbox as per normal then remove gearstick and add another 1- 1.25 litres via the top as the casting of the filler bung as it was not high enough in the casting to ensure all parts got lubricated.

If this hasn't been done the age of the vehicle would already dictate if the gearbox is already damaged or not, due to general wear and tear and running low oil.

from memory and what happens usually is the shaft will start to bind and spin the bearing in the casing..it will just get hard to select and will feel like a clutch issue.

[Wade]

When i drained it the gear oil was very dirty and only approx 3L came out, it was quite hard to select first when cold but that has been common across all Nissans i have owned.

I replaced it with a Penrite full synthetic GL4, I did put the full 5L in and it is now very smooth and easy to select any gear even when cold so fingers crossed its still a good one!