Confirmed input shaft bearing noise video.

[Sübfahrer]

Hi all, I just bought a high mileage '96 EJ22 5spd Outback wagon that had a grinding / grating noise coming from the transmission in all gears. I took a video and was going to post it up and ask for opinions as to what it could be, but decided to just dig in and find out first hand instead. It turned out to be bad input shaft bearings apparantly caused by the gear oil never being changed in 345k miles. I saw no evidence of the drain plug ever having been touched and the oil was black and smelt burnt. The transmission had shifted perfectly and save for a grumbly second gear needle bearing all other hard parts were found to be in good shape. The clutch also appeared original and pilot and throw out bearings were in ok shape. Using this thread as a guide I was able to succesfully "go through" the trans. and get it back up to par with only a couple of hundred dollars spent on parts. To possibly aid in future diagnosis of this problem here is my original video of the noise -

Edited April 8, 2014 by Sübfahrer