Manual gearbox no 5th and reverse or difficult to select them.

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marvine

New Member
Posts
3
Location
Harare
Hi everyone.
I have a p38 diesel manual (named it BEAST) using an r380 box, also used on the p38 4.0, discovery and defenders with some variations on the last two.

About two days ago I started noticing a difficulty selecting reverse and 5th. I stopped to park at work and tried engaging reverse and 5th and they wouldn't for the love of God go in. It was as if the gate for the two gears was blocked solid.

Took a break from work, pulled up my sleeves and removed the centre console to access the gearbox selector through the gearbox tunnel.

On the sides there are those small left and right little stoppers that can be adjusted. I increased the right stopper and that allowed me to select reverse and 5th but with a significant difficulty.

When I got home I removed the whole selector to inspect it. Found out that the selector pin at the end that locates on the gearbox had come undone as in the picture.

Mmmmmm I wonder, this surely is the culprit. Luckily I had another box on the side and used that for testing. Mounted it and tested, sure enough no 5th and reverse. Tightened up the pin and put it back on the gearbox and 5th and reverse where like butter.

Took the selector and tightened pin then welded it to the shaft.

Now here is where you must be careful with the welding. Avoid as much as possible welding on the side that slides towards the back, if you do like I noted the selectors' travel distance to 1st, 3rd and 5th will be reduced and you may fail to get these or in my case got them but either they grinded and slipped out or both and eventually the shifts become difficult again. So don't weld the shaft side.

Fixed my small mistake and the box shifts smoothly.

To remove the selector first lower the box and tc by undoing the four bolts on the cross member that holds the box and lower it by about 3cm to or so supporting it with a jack or something. This will allow you reasonable access to the selector bolts and also be able to wiggle the selector of the box out of the tunnel.

This might help someone.

Cheers.
 

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Hello and welcome:)
The selector pin coming loose is quite common, on mine the balls in the end of the stops were all rusted up so had to free them up as well.
 
Yes on the the rust I think it's always good to put some grease in there when ever you are around thelat area.
 
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