trans noise at idle, goes away when I clutch in

Nope.

 

Just as an update to this thread, my W59 transmission (pictured above) that had this problem of noise in all gears except 4th wound up having a bad countershaft carrier bearing. Unfortunately, it disintegrated enough that it scored the countershaft horribly, to where it had to be replaced ($$ouch!$). The transmission now has all new bearings and synchros as well, and I'll be putting the shift forks back on in a few minutes.

 

So I have a very, very pronounced whine in gears 1,2,3 but none in 4th, so I'm assuming based on your info that my countershaft bearings are noisy.

My question is how bad is this issue? Is the gearbox going to grenade eventually and need to be replaced? If so how much am I looking at?

Will a fluid change help the issue at all?

 

All older w59 transmissions whine in those gears to some degree. Mine started making a loud tapping/clacking noise when I had the bearing failure. I still drove it another 500 miles or so before I pulled the transmission, and it didn't grenade on me. ymmv.

 

Awesome. That was basically my question: how normal is the whine.

 

Did you guys have any issues with the counter 5th gear and synchro spacing? For some reason the reverse synchro pull ring is sticking out too far and not letting the counter gear move all the way forward on the shaft. It's a matter of millimeters but has put a halt on my rebuild for 2 days now. I give a more detailed explanation and pictures in this thread https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/help-getting-w59-transmission-back-together

 

Dos this ever get solved?

 

My 04 2wd has a very pronounced whine in neutral. Can hear it in 1st and 2nd and it seems to be gone on the others. I recently drained clean fluid out and replaced with redline. Seemed to help some but this thing will have to be fixed or replaced at some point. Curious what bearing is bad tho that can o my be heard in the 1st two gears.

 

Just want to clarify that replacing the throw-out bearing doesn't require a transmission rebuild. You just have to back it off and get behind the bellhousing where the clutch & flywheel are- it's a good thing to replace as well (along with the pilot bearing) whenever doing the clutch.

I assume that's what you were getting at anyways, but removing & rebuilding a trans is definitely much more involved than just backing it off to replace clutch components.