gearbox problem diagnosis help!

nicholas · Post by **nicholas** » Fri Mar 05, 2010 9:45 pm

Hi guys,

Something very wrong with the f-to...

Driving home tonight, turning off M2 onto pennant hills rd for those in Sydney. Went to select second as I come round the corner, couldn't find it... that's weird I thought. Moved the gearstick around a little bit to re-find everything, and suddenly... oh sh*t... nothing at all. Can't feel the H pattern, can't feel any gears at all

Okay so I managed to crawl the car home, somehow finding a combination of 1st, 3rd and 5th... but definitely not where you would expect them to be.

It's definitely not the clutch, which is working fine. What appears to be the prob (and this is where i need your help) is that:
1. the forward / backward selector seems to be working okay (as in, the cable is moving freely in the sleeve and you can move the gear lever towards the front and back of the car, but:
2. the left / right selector seems broken. definitely can't move the gear lever to the left or right of the car

so... not sure what you guys think it might be? definitely no warning of impending trouble; synchros are ok, clutch is fine, all gears were easily selectable before tonight

please let me know what you think I should try and look at! thanks

Post by **I8A4RE** » Fri Mar 05, 2010 10:25 pm

Good News: Sounds like cable
Bad News: Maybe hard to locate a replacement.

nicholas · Post by **nicholas** » Fri Mar 05, 2010 10:39 pm

Thanks simon, yeah i agree it doesn't seem like an ''internals'' issue... what do you think is the first thing to try though?

Post by **I8A4RE** » Fri Mar 05, 2010 11:18 pm

Well, i would start by taking off the gear stick boot and undoing the cable. Pull on the end to see if the cable has broken. If you cant tell by doing that, jack the car remove the cable and see if you can select gears by your hand.

Post by **vipfto** » Sat Mar 06, 2010 7:22 am

cable or bracket (that connects to g/box) remove battery and its base holder then you can see all not difficult to fix either just need the parts

Post by **Bennoz** » Sat Mar 06, 2010 8:49 am

Yep, would put my first born on bracket ^^

Not hard to fix, bit of a c**t to get it thou.

nicholas · Post by **nicholas** » Sun Mar 07, 2010 7:44 pm

Fantastic guys, thanks for the pointers.

I just got home from a weekend on the gold coast (was driving home after missing my flight on friday night when this happened actually, just to make matters worse) so won't look at it tonight, but will remove the battery / holder tomorrow and have a look.

Ben or Dwayne, if it is that bracket, how hard are they to source / where should I look?

Thanks guys.

Post by **vipfto** » Sun Mar 07, 2010 9:09 pm

Camskill mate mine was under $100 delivered or you maybe able to dodgy it up Ben used bolts with nylock nuts as you can see and I welded mine back together but have since replaced with new one

nicholas · Post by **nicholas** » Mon Mar 08, 2010 8:55 pm

Okay guys, time for an update. Took the battery & holder out to have a look at the g/box end of the cable. I'm proud to say that I'm 90% sure you guys are spot on about the bracket!

As you can see in the below pic (contrasted to Ben's last pic) the lower of the two cables seems to have broken free from the bracket (I presume it isn't supposed to be like that).

Now that I think about it, it makes sense that things happened the way they did. Initially it must have broken free just slightly, which would be enough for me not to be able to select second. However, I could still select third or fifth. I think that is because it's easier to go from 1 --> neutral than from neutral --> 2nd. So i could select between 1, 3 and 5 as they are (relatively easy) shifts into neutral and then back up again, but any of the gears that involve throwing from neutral downwards (i.e. 2nd, 4th, R) were impossible to grab.

Eventually though, the bracket has obviously broken away completely, therefore I can't even select neutral now and the car is stuck in third.

I've pretty much confirmed this is the case because I can still select gears by hand. Also, when the car isn't in gear (i.e. neutral selected by hand) the gearstick works side to side, which makes sense as well as only the lower bracket is broken.

So thanks guys, for helping me to isolate the problem. The next couple of questions are around fixing it. If someone can answer them I'll be super greatful:
1. I've had a look at Camskill's website. vipfto probably, can you confirm this is the same part you ordered? http://www.camskill.co.uk/products.php? ... b0s12p5732
2. vipfto, how long did it take camskill to ship to you (payment to door)
3. how do you go about replacing it? Can you do it top-down? Notice I've got a white frame above mine, which Ben doesn't appear to have... is this removable? Appears to be a solid part of the chassis to me...
4. Ben, or anyone else in Syd... if it is a gearbox out job, what am I looking at in terms of labour costs for that?

Thanks guys, appreciate your help. Soooo glad that it isn't gearbox internal!

Post by **Bennoz** » Mon Mar 08, 2010 9:15 pm

Yeah thats shot mate.

Good news is, its not tooooo hard to get out, box doesn't need to come out.

You need to remove the battery & the intake pipe.

First up, remove the split pins from cables where they attach to the gearbox. Then disconnect the cables themselves. Remember to keep the specialised washers on either side of the cable connections.

Then get a set of multigrips in & remove the spring clips which locks both cables into their sockets. Circled here:

They snap out from the top, so you'll need to lever them up & out with the multigrips.

Then once you've got the cables out of the way, all you have to undo the 2 x 14mm bolts that hold the bracket to the box (marked with blue X's) - seen to the left of screen on that pic. Again, there are 2 specialised rubber / steel insert washers that you need to keep from each bolt.

To be honest, I've just kept using my bracket with the 2 bolts through it & it has been fine to drive with. I made sure I drilled though the bracket in exactly the same spot on either side, so's to keep the pivot point lined up. Using lock nuts also allowed me to not have to do it up too tight (again keeping flexibility in the bracket.)

Assembly is obviously, the exact reverse of the above removal.

Hope that helps!

nicholas · Post by **nicholas** » Mon Mar 08, 2010 9:21 pm

Oh and final question:

seeing as I'm buying Camskill and paying to have it shipped anyway, anything I should get at the same time? Thinking drop links, engine mounts etc. Not sure what condition it's all in, but the car has done 129,000 kms.

Cheers boys.

Post by **Bennoz** » Mon Mar 08, 2010 9:23 pm

Droplinks. Best price about atm.

nicholas · Post by **nicholas** » Mon Mar 08, 2010 9:29 pm

Ben that is brilliant mate!

I think I'll still go with the OE part from Camskill, if for no other reason than I don't have the tools available to me to drill through the existing bracket (so if I have to buy tools, might as well just import from UK).

Have you found that you're feeling more engine vibration through the gearstick now that you've bolted it in place? I must admit I'd been noticing more vibration through the gearstick over time, which hints that the rubber was pretty perished for a while!

Post by **aza013** » Mon Mar 08, 2010 9:31 pm

After looking at this I may have to check my one too lol
but I think my problem is with the box oil as the changes become smoother after about 20 minutes of driving.

Post by **vipfto** » Tue Mar 09, 2010 7:31 am

yip there is only two parts one for post 95 fto one for pre 95

and took them about 4-5 working days they are usually very fast

FTEvolution · Post by **FTEvolution** » Tue Mar 09, 2010 7:46 am

vipfto wrote:yip there is only two parts one for post 95 fto one for pre 95

and took them about 4-5 working days they are usually very fast

Also, call them nicholas, because they may be able to same day air freight them to you (so like 2-3 days total) for not a hell of a lot more.

Post by **Bennoz** » Tue Mar 09, 2010 8:14 am

nicholas wrote:Have you found that you're feeling more engine vibration through the gearstick now that you've bolted it in place? I must admit I'd been noticing more vibration through the gearstick over time, which hints that the rubber was pretty perished for a while!

Not really. Mind you, having a short shifter & a freshly rebuilt box with Cusco LSD, its fairly tight all round...

aza013 wrote:but I think my problem is with the box oil as the changes become smoother after about 20 minutes of driving.

Yep, thats the oil being too heavy a grade. Change it for a lighter grade & that notchy feeling when cold will go away.

bushido · Post by **bushido** » Tue Mar 09, 2010 9:39 am

I have the same feeling as aza. Im using limslip 90 so is it feasable for me to change to a lower grade? Im positive that will make the diff noisier...

nicholas · Post by **nicholas** » Thu Mar 18, 2010 10:59 pm

K guys quick update - ordered the part of Camskill website Monday (or Tuesday... sometime on the other side of St Pat's day lol) so hopefully get it before next weekend. Aim to drop it in and have the car back on the road next weekend.

In other news, picking up my new stereo stuff on Sat, very excited

Getting - Boston splits, kicker amp, kicker sub, sh*tty kenwood 6x9s

nicholas · Post by **nicholas** » Wed Mar 31, 2010 1:21 pm

Hi guys,

thanks again for all your help on this. Received the part yesterday, and took about 2 hours of work last night to get it in.

I would say on the whole it was about 6/10 c*nts difficulty level. The main problem I had was accessibility - the metal frame that the battery holder sits on (which in turn is bolted to the chassis) makes it really hard to get at the bracket - Ben, I've got a suspicion that you've removed yours, seeing as your battery is in the boot... true? Anyway, that meant that the spring clips were almost impossible to lever off the bracket because you just couldn't get at them.

Anyway, once the old bracket was out, it was relatively simple to get the new one back in; the only complicated bit was getting the spring clips back on again (had to use a clamp on each bracket) but after that was home free. Took about 2 hours in total.

Car is still up on stands cos I ran out of energy, hoping to take it out tonight for a quick cruise though - has been off the road for almost a month!

Next task - install the new audio gear