Yay! My gearbox just exploded!

jimllshiftit said:

Well, if it’s not one thing it’s another......

ive not long cleanEd the p38 to within an inch of its life.... last time I did that a very large willow tree fell on it and smashed the tailgate and rear quarter to bits...... this time i was thoroughly enjoying my drive home from the chippy with spotless windows, shiny paint and lemon fragranced interior when the whole car started to gently vibrate.

Earlier in the day I had noticed a fast “dry” sounding squeak, like a failing prop shaft UJ but I was able to stick a pry bar between the UJs and all appeared OK. Then the vibrating started, then an almighty clattering from under the car like a prop shaft had come off (impossible as the car is still driving) then very little forward propulsion, then no forward propulsion, then a little bit of rearward propulsion, then I was able to move forward again although the gearstick appeared to make its own decision about which gear it wanted to be in, then the clattering stopped and made the last 300 yards home without any clattering or vibration..... the poor thing seemed to be driving normally when I got home although the gear selector is very stiff.

My gearbox hasn’t been right for quite sometime. i remember driving back up from Alicante in it about five years ago when i noticed a faint grinding noise coming from the bell housing at motorway speeds.... but it had never developed into anything worse so apart from oil changes I never touched it.

My friendly local scrappy have got a couple of 4.6 Thor’s in the yard so I’ll be off to get an HP24 out of one of them shortly.... good opportunity to upgrade.... but does anyone know what is likely to have happened here? I haven’t got under the car since last night but I couldn’t see anything wrong externally....

1997 P38 dt with a HP22

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jimllshiftit said:

Without question this car is allergic to water. It gets washed and it wants to commit suicide....... last Christmas it’s wasn’t all that happy about having water in it’s cooling system ...... so it tried to kill itself then, too!

oh right, flex plate or torque converter? They’re the bits underneath the car, right in the middle, sandwiched between the big heavy engine and the two big heavy gearboxes.......... No big deal then... ffs!

thanks for the input. sounds like the Conversion to HP24 will be the way forward. Is that a headache to swap? Should I do some reading first?

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Henry_b said:

Pop the cover off the bottom of the bellhousing and shine a torch in there, you should be able to see the flexplate.
And indeed any cracks in it...

Symptoms sound exactly like mine when the flex plate on my D2 went down the pan.

Swapping the HP22 to the 24 is relatively straight forward, to avoid unnecessary headache try and find a late 030-065 HP24 it is the same length as the HP22 in the diesel With the diesel bellhousing this box is the same length overall as the diesel HP22. It is a direct swap

Just makes life a bit easier..
The earlier HP24 is actually 15mm longer. If you fit a HP22 diesel tailend to this box it works out the same length.

Only the diesel torque converter will fit into the diesel bellhousing. The 4.0 and 4.6 are too big, you can however have the stock diesel one modified to have a lower stall speed, which will be better suited to a chipped engine IMHO.

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Grrrrrr said:

That's the weekend sorted then. I wonder how much a new flex-plate is as preventative maintenance?

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Datatek said:

£52 when I looked for the other guy who said he couldn't find one. Big job to fit though.

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jimllshiftit said:

Are you challenging me Mr Grrrr?

Tomorrow im going over to get the replacement box out.... thatll be a trial run, at least..... except the scrapyard floor is a mess and ill probably have to do it with the car on its side if I can get the bloke who drives the teleporter to flip the car over for me,,,,,, and hes not known for his generosity.....

Any special tools or tips required for this? Havent taken a box out for ten years but from memory its just the xyz, linkage to the gearstick, two props, a crossmember, a load of 8 or 10mm bolts around the bellhousing, a couple of mounts and the torque converter should all but fall off, shouldnt it?

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jimllshiftit said:

Are you challenging me Mr Grrrr?

Tomorrow im going over to get the replacement box out.... thatll be a trial run, at least..... except the scrapyard floor is a mess and ill probably have to do it with the car on its side if I can get the bloke who drives the teleporter to flip the car over for me,,,,,, and hes not known for his generosity.....

Any special tools or tips required for this? Havent taken a box out for ten years but from memory its just the xyz, linkage to the gearstick, two props, a crossmember, a load of 8 or 10mm bolts around the bellhousing, a couple of mounts and the torque converter should all but fall off, shouldnt it?

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jimllshiftit said:

All i managed to get off was the hand brake and the gear selector.... the guy with the teleporter was "on his break" for three feckin' hours? I thought he'd gone to Barnard Castle to check his eyesight or something.

Anyway, going back tomorrow to hopefully flip the car over and get to the underside........ neither of these poor things deserved this treatment though........

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jimllshiftit said:

That gold Rangie was in decent nick when it arrived but it appears someone else spotted it and ransacked it before I could get back with my tool kit.... It had the full walnut trim on the dash and the centre console, immacualte cream leather and the TVs in the headrests...... a completely unnecessary indulgence, but I wouldnt have minded having it.

Thankfully managed to get one of the other blokes to flip the car over who was a lot more helpful.... but as soon as it went over I spotted that someone had already had the transfer box apart and it was all in pieces under the car..... is my existing transfer box going to be a straight swap? Im not sure what box I have at the moment.

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