Gearbox a gonner?

Hi there, was giving my mate a hand messing with his 110 hi cap today, it's a 94 300tdi and we were chasing slack in his drivetrain. With the hand brake off, the prop has about 1/4 a turn of free play. So I thaught if he put it in gear and the play went, we could assume it was just the diff. But with it in gear the play is still there. When we moved the prop the front prop moved with the same amount of movement.
His box dosent whine in any gears, just has alot of slack! Is the box goosed? Or is it a simple fix?
Cheers guys!

Most often, a lot of slack in the drivetrain comes from the halfshafts or drive flanges. These would be my first port of call. I assume you have checked the UJs on the propshafts for wear?

Yeh checked those but because the front prop moves aswel, I thaught it must be something else because movement is going through the uj.

Hi there, i had the same problem with my landy. The problem was the mainshaft coming off the gearbox which goes into the transfer box. The splines wear on that mainshaft which causes slack. The slack comes from the mainshaft splines wearing when in comes into contact with the input gear in the transfer box. The way to definantly check this is to chock all four wheels and rock the car on the clutch. If you can hear a 'bang' as such then this is most likely the problem unfortunately.

Yep that's the one! Is it a recon box or can you just change that shaft?
Cheers fella

you can weld the splines and re shape or replace in put shaft.As is i would get a 2nd hand box,wack it in and then rebuild my old one over winter......

Yehh that's a good call, how much are we looking at for a used box? He is tempted to just take his box out and swap it for a recon one.. Sounds like a dear solution to me!

£200 for a good second hand box I would say.

£500ish from ashcrofts for a rebuild.

I would go for the recon box (I did) for the extra money it's certainly worth it and knowing that you should have 100,000miles out of it if it's driven carefully and oils are kept good.

discomania said:

£200 for a good second hand box I would say.

£500ish from ashcrofts for a rebuild.

I would go for the recon box (I did) for the extra money it's certainly worth it and knowing that you should have 100,000miles out of it if it's driven carefully and oils are kept good.

Click to expand...

agreed ,i would do that but i have enough space and time so when mine needs doing im gunna diy me own box and then do the second hand 1 on removal.i end up with a recon ready and a recon fitted.

well, there are two parts to the equation here. If it is that, then you want to swap the intermediate gear in the transfer box that the mainshaft goes in to as well as the gearbox. Ashcrofts sell cross-drilled intermediate gears that avoid the design fault which has probably led your existing splines to an early grave. Check your transfer box serial code and ask them to see if they're compatible. The intermediate gear can be changed in-situ too.

I'm in the same situation by the way I talked to someone recently who had just stuck their intermediate gear to their mainshaft with araldite. It worked a treat apparently, but he knows that if he ever has to replace either tranny or gearbox, they're both going to have to come out hehe.

That's also a good point. He is going to buy a recon one over winter. He has loads of room to do it, and he is taking it off the road to put a tipping bed on it. It's up to him tho.
Cheers for the info and help guys!

Yes good point, forgot about that! He said he is going to get a recon box over winter while he has it off the road to put a tipping bed on the back.
Cheers for the help and advice guys!
Karl

Well all that i had done to mine was a replacement mainshaft and input gear from the transfer box and job done. However while i had the gearbox out i chose to replace the syncro's simply because the box had done over 100k miles and it only seemed right to spend the extra little bit to do this.

how much did that set you back if you dont mind me asking?
cheers

Well for the mainshaft and the syncro rebuild it was £300, but i also had various other little bits and pieces, bearings etc. That was also including the cost of the new cross drilled input gear from the transfer box.