Okay, now I'm a little worried. I got a used NV4500 from J. George enterprise down in Florida, got it about a week ago. I have been putting off tearing it down a little to check it all out, but I got around to it this evening and I found something I don't like! The case was clearly cracked around the top drivers side mounting flange, where the case bolts to the bell housing, right above the slave cylinder. It was a little hard to see, but I was cleaning it down with brake cleaner and it popped right out at me, the pit marks. I don't know how you could crack the case at this spot, but it looks like the flange and part of the case came almost completely off. There is a pretty deep puddle mark on the inside of the case almost an inch long from welding, I presume. (I don't know how magnaflux or those stitch things work, so I'll call it welding.)

After I saw that, I immediatly pulled the shift fork housing off as well as the O/D housing. What oil that was left in the case looked pretty, eh, shiney I guess, with a pretty strong presence of brass coloration. Face of all material in the case is black and wipes right off. Has what appears to be an updated split nut on the 5th gear, and everything else (from the top, anyway) looks pretty good. All the lead-in teeth look pretty good, and it does shift firm but smooth by hand. No excessive wear marks on anything.

So at the least I'll try to get some of my money back, I paid $1400+ for the whole thing shipped, but it did come with the shifter, bellhousing, pivot fork, and the master/slave setup.

So please chime in! My gut tells me to just throw it in, but I've been wrong before. I just bought a 6k lb camper trailer, thats about the heaviest I'll tow 90% of the time (occasional 12-15k, maybe once a year for a few hundred miles), and I just might do the sledpull again at the Marshfield fair. I drive pretty easy usually, and don't have a ton of power. I included some pics to clarify. THanks for any input!

 

id proly try to find jus a case and swap everything over cause u never know if there are more cracks you cant see and then if all the fluid leaks out and you dont know then ur screwed out of a whole tranny. my nv4500 case is cracked at the top by the input shaft plannin on gettin a new case here soon and swap everything over..right now its jus got some magnum steel over it for now lol

 

I had the same crack in the exact same spot on a nv4500 case for my old 6.5 chevy. I tried all kinds of fixes and even driving VERY easy and no towing, craked again. Pitch the case!

 

I'm with 67 HotRod, no way I would trust it even in light duty.

Heavy Truck plus Torque equals mucho stress.

 

I saw that in trucks that were wrecked . I probably would run it ,but I would make sure all my eng./tranny mounts were good .

 

Well if I got a smoking deal on it I would run it, but I paid a pretty full price, and I might have grabbed hold of my patience finally. So Joe from J. George enterprise is so far being very helpful on getting this fixed. Won't find out until monday on what the resolution is, but it looks promising anyway. I'll keep ya posted.