M13a rattle in 4th gear only.

Howzit chaps !

Brandon from sunny South Africa here and stoked to be part of a Jimny specific forum !

My 2011 M13a has developed a rattle in 4th gear only , it sounds much to me like a worn bearing , however , I have heard some people suggesting a t case could be bad ?

Obviously without stripping it , it would be silly to speculate but what are your guys experiences ? Anybody here had a similar problem ?

My gf and I are off to Mozambique end of the week , surprise for her ( engagement on the cards if she says yes ) and want to know if you guys have had this rattle , how long you went with it. I want to sort this out ASAP but it's popped up at a bad time with it being so close to this holiday.

Hoping silently that I can get 2000km out of it before it spits out it's internals and leaves me with metal pie on the highway ?

Thanks in advance

if you skip gears (i.e. 3rd to 5th/5th to 3rd), does that stop the noise? if yes then gearbox, if no then probs transfer box.

2000k? yes probably if you skip 4th all the time and its probably a good idea to top-up the gearbox oil. maybe even add some thick grease into the oil (trick for making a dodgy gearbox quieter)

I haven't tried skipping gears as yet , I'll give that a bash tomorrow and see.

I may end up having to throw some grease at it , which I'm not happy about , but I just need it to last until next week.

I pulled the box a couple weeks back to do a clutch , input shaft bearing felt ok , acceptable wear for a 140000km old box , nothing excessive.

I do have a feeling that I'm going to have to pull it again though by the looks of things.

What normally goes , worn 4th gear or the bearing ?