I just put a ZF5 manual transmission in my F250. Condition of the transmission was unknown, so before hooking up the transfer case, I wanted to see if all gears worked with no horrifying noises. Obviously, it's under no load, so it doesn't tell much of a story. Anyway, it was all good except the output shaft turns with the motor running in neutral. Doesn't make sense to me.
Engine off, trans in neutral, the output shaft spins freely as you'd expect. Is this something to worry about or is it just cold oil/friction causing the output to turn? I think I have myself talked into pushing forward, but most of you guys know better than me.
Probably fine. Just friction making it move.
GaryC83
New Reader
1/31/22 8:11 p.m.
In reply to wheelsmithy (Joe-with-an-L) :
Yup.
I wouldnt worry about it. It's caused from internals spinning through the fluid, acting almost "torque converter" like, if you want to think about it like that. It's just drag and fluid movement causing the shaft to spin. Once you set it on the ground and have weight on the wheels.. it'll stop. There's no drag on the output shaft, so it takes VERY little to get it to start spinning.
Obviously it *could* be something else, but my gut says it's not. It's pretty damn normal, actually, just caused by the internal friction in the trans.
On a lot of cars there's enough friction that if you jack the whole vehicle up, the wheels will twitch a bit with the car running in neutral.
