[rgunlock]

Hey Brett, good to hear from you. I think I have about 6000 on the odometer, and maybe another 1000-1500 before I got the odometer working.

Funny you should bring up the 5 speed. I am going to be picking the truck up from a transmission shop a little later today. It's been there since a week ago Monday. I've had a really annoying loud whine and rattling whenever I put it into 5th gear. Doesn't appear to have anything to do with the truck's speed or RPMs, just happens anytime and the whole time it is in 5th. The transmission is great 1st-4th and reverse. I spent some time checking around and found this shop in the area where the guy has been building transmissions for going on 40 years. Everyone brings their manual transmissions to him because he's one of the only shops around that will work on them.

He test drove, heard the racket and figured it would be easy to spot the problem. He found a couple bearings that didn't look new, but not too bad. The rest appeared to be new (I'd had the NV4500 rebuilt about 6 years ago and never used it until now). Found nothing he was confident was causing the noise. No metal scraps in the oil, nothing. I had him replace those "suspect" bearings since I was already paying for all the labor.

Well, the noise didn't go away. He can't figure out where its coming from. Suggested I just drive it since it doesn't look like anything is being damaged. Maybe wrap it with more insulation. Grrrrrr..... Fortunately, most of my daily driving doesn't get out of 4th anyway.