Conference terri::cars_uk

    Yo Mike,
    
    So no advise on Samba gearboxes then!!
    1458 must have slipped through my net when I was looking for a place
    for this prob.
    
    Thanks for the tip, if Mister Mod is looking feel free to move this.
    Especially if it gets me some solutions.
    
    Trev.

    ...not a Gearbox answer, as I dont know much about them, but the
    linkage could hold the answer. As your car is 9YO, it may be that the
    engine mountings have worn/collapsed, or (if fitted) a rubber engine
    stabilizer may have rotten away causing the engine/gearbox to move
    out of range from your remote gearlever. If not, some selector
    expertise may be called for...

    
    Thanks re.3, I'll have a look this weekend.
    
    Mike your words have been noted, and I will follow your counselling to
    the letter {NOT}                                            ^
    Are you on something, 
    	If TRUE Then
    		Can I have some
    	Else
    		you should be
    	End If
    
    Trev

    
    
    		If you Norn Irn people don't stop
    
    		slagging people off in this public 
    
    		notes conference then I'll have to 
    
    		let you both go.
    
    		p.s. Trev. Bring the car to a garage
    
    		you miserable git.
    
    		As for you mike, you couldn't know
    
    		anything about cars, as you haven't
    
    		got one. - You have a Citreon AX.
    
    		Regards,
    
    		Fergal :-)

    I'll see to you later Fergal...
    
    Mike
    
    p.s. Wot sort of TABS are you using/smoking ;-)

    re: .6
    
    And it's Citroen !.
    And quit sayin' "Regards" !.
    
    Rgds,
    
    Mike

    Regards,
    Regards,
    Regards,
    Regards,
    Regards,
    Regards,
    Regards,
    Fergal.
    

    Now Fergal and Mike this has
    very little to do with cars, 
    and for that matter solving
    my problem(the gearbox!!).
    
    So desist. :-)
    
    Trev.
    
    Ps. Fergals your man for the banned substances. ;-)

    
    I've used flushing oil on a Fiesta '79, the muck that came out was
    unreal.
    The question is can flushing oil be used on an engine where it shares
    the oil with the gearbox?
    Also any views on 'Flushing' oil? I've heard that new oils with
    detergents/dispersants can actually damage an old engine because its
    coated in sludge. The sludge is dislodged only to block some narrow
    channel. Would Flushing oil increase the risk or prevent it by actually
    washing the engine?
    
    I know the Samba isn't ancient ('83) but its had alot of cold starts 
    and short journeys(Shopping trolley). So the sludge must have taken
    over by now! Revenge of the sl... nah!
    
    Any views? Before I end up buying an engine as well as a gearbox! :-|
    
    Trev

    
    My girlfriend owns an '83 Samba and recently had a similarish problem
    to the one that you are experiencing.  Whenever she tried using the
    reverse gear apart from emitting loud crunching noises (I know she's a
    woman driver) it was always a struggle to get the lever to slot in.
    
    After much investigation it turned out that even though she had
    depressed the clutch as far as it would go it was actually loose. 
    This of course meant that she wasn't depressing the clutch as far as it
    needed to go to allow smooth transmission.
    
    Simply solved by tightening the clutch cable.  No more embarrassing
    moments.
    
    Steve.
                                                   

    Steve
    That sounds hopeful, I'll try that.
    
    
    Rgds,
    Trev

> Whenever she tried using the reverse gear apart from emitting loud crunching
> noises (I know she's a woman driver)

That's a bit of a sexist comment, isn't it?

Dave.

    re .12
    If I was chefs::Edinboroughs I 'd duck ... The four minute warning just
    sounded ... missiles coming in from forty2 , majors and suburb 
    ;-)))  

    re. 15
    >>Trev, are you saying that you hadn't even thought of tightening the
    clutch cable???
    
    It didn't seem necessary cause the clutch pedal could be lifted over
    1cm by hand and when resting was level with the brake pedal. :-)
    
    >>p.s. Shall I set up a "How to change a tyre" topic for you.
    No. Had to learn on Saturday morning. Myself and a few mates stayed
    over with some scout leaders. Got completely wasted, we woke up all the
    scouts and the leaders who now became very sober and serious. They kicked
    two of my mates out to sleep in my car. The scouts would appear to have
    taken offence also as the front right tyre was flat, but no puncture.
    
    
    Just to show how strong a Samba is read on. Parked said car behind a
    mates Escort MkIII at a petrol station last night. Came back out to
    find him standing beside the two cars saying,"Didn't see you park behind me
    Trev, I'm really sorry". A policeman was standing beside me by this
    stage, the more aggressively dressed type we get over here the ones with 
    machine guns.  "Whats wrong", they both pointed at the boot of the
    Escort. It was stove in and the metal bumper had a huge bend in it,
    real awful looking. All that could be found wrong with the samba was
    the front right indicator was a bit loose on its mountings. The
    policeman confirmed that we new each other and everything was
    hunky-doory then disappeared.  
    
    So there, never slag off a Samba. Built before crumple zones were even
    a twinkle in the eye of marketing.
    "Lets make some money, trick the punters into thinking that the NEW cars
    are safer. The repairs will cost them a fortune, we'll make huge
    profits. ha ha ha thump". Quote from a headless marketing executive. :-)
    
    Trev.
    p.s. mike does the new topic offer still stand? :-) 
    

	My wife's has an Astra (1989 1.3L), the gearchange hasn't been 
particularly brilliant since we've had it and I would like to try to sort it out.

	The problem is most annoying when changing down to second, it can be very 
awkward. Generally the rest of the gearbox is not too bad 3rd - 4th - 5th up and
back down is quite acceptable. Moving between 1st - 2nd in slow traffic is I'm
sure getting worse. I have no problems getting into reverse. Incidently it gets 
easier to engage second as the car slows down.

	The car has down 65,000 miles and generally seems in good running order.
I dont know if the clutch has ever been changed, but I have dug out the Haynes
manual and performed the alignment for the gearstick/gearbox which was out a 
little. This made absolutely no difference at all.

	I'm hoping you guys are going to say "Its definiitely the clutch", but
I reckon your going to say "its definitely the gearbox syncromesh". I think it 
could be a bent selector and if it is has anybody ever had this kind of fault
and did/could they fix it ?

	Over to you ..........

Andy

    My previous Astra GTE and current GSi have difficulty going down to 2nd
    gear.  
    
    One day the wife came home from work in the GTE and drove in a big
    circle, hit the fence, jumped out and pushed the car back, got in and
    drove clear of the fence and abandoned it in the middle of the
    road...reverse  wasn't selectable.  
    
    The collar had jammed so it wouldn't lift up.  Whilst it was in this
    state the rest of the gears worked a lot smoother than they had ever
    done.  A quick inspection and it appears that all that lifting the
    collar does is lift a piece of plastic clear of the hole where the gear
    stick is so that the gear stick will move further to the left.  Once
    I'd fixed reverse with a large hammer, the gears went back to being
    stiff again so I blamed the problem of selecting second gear on
    'something to do with the reverse mechanism'.  Just a thought, but is
    it easier to engage second with the collar lifted ?  Hmm maybe I'll
    give it a go tonight.
    
    tp
                                        

    
    I have exactly the same problem with my 1986 Nova 1.3L
    
    Second is a real problem unless slowing down considerably or double
    de-clustching and heel and towing!!
    
    Steve

I seem to find that any car that I drive tends to have a very short lived
gearbox, and I can't figure out why.  Before I go into my driving style,
here's a brief history of every car that I've owned or driven for long
periods:

- VW Polo 1.1 CLE: after about 20,000 miles of driving, the gearbox completely
  fell apart, and was irrepairable.  A new one had to be fitted.
- Vauxhall Cavalier (hire car, about 5000 miles): this was shared between a
  colleauge and myself to travel to a course in Manchester.  After about 300
  miles of me driving it, the gearchange became very heavy, and my colleague,
  when she took over driving again, commented that since I'd driven it, it
  had become almost impossible to change gear.
- Rover 213, around 25,000 miles: this gearbox was okay to start with, but
  5,000 miles later, refused to engage gears unless I took my time over it.
- Vauxhall Astra 1.4 (hire car, 5,000 miles again): gearbox was fine from
  the start, but soon required considerable force to engage gears.
- Ford Escort 1.4 (hire car, 10 miles): after the careful running in period,
  I began driving it normally, and it soon showed the same symptoms as the
  Astra.
- Rover 214 SLi (company car, new)  Same as the Escort, after about 20,000
  miles the gearbox started making worrying noises.  After taking it to a
  garage, they said that one of the gear cogs was disintegrating.
- Calibra SE4 (current company car, now 6,000 miles): the gearchange has
  become very difficult recently and often makes nasty grinding noises when
  changing.

I can't really find any obvious problem with the way I change gear, I always
ensure that the clutch is completely disengaged during a gearchange, and don't
suddenly ram the gearstick into an inappropriate gear.  The only possibly
significant comment(s) that I've heard were from one or two people who mentioned
that I have an unusually fast gearchange, but I don't like spending unnecessary
time in neural, and I'd have thought that a lump of high carbon steel, no matter
how complex, should be able to cope with quite a high margin.

So what's going on?  Am I just extremely unlucky with transmissions, or is
there something fundamentally wrong with my driving style?  I'd love to know,
as yet another gearbox looks like it's nearing the end of its life, but I've
only ever had to replace one clutch plate in the entire time I've been driving!

Chris.

Oh, nearly forgot: the other possibly significant thing I can think of is
that I tend to change gear a *lot* unless I'm driving for long distances
at a constant speed.  Even so, I'd still expect the gearbox to last as least
as long as the clutch...

Chris.

The fast gear changes would be wearing out the sychronizers and that would lead
to hard changes in the future.

When you say it gets hard to put it into gears, does it crunch and make noises
or just requires more force?  The crunching is a bad sychronizer and usually
happens to 2nd gear first.  If it just requires extra force, it could be
misalignment of the shifting rods/cables going from the base of the shifter to
the gear box.

When you downshift, do you do double clutching at all?  That might be something
to try as well.

Dave

>When you say it gets hard to put it into gears, does it crunch and make noises
>or just requires more force?  The crunching is a bad sychronizer and usually
>happens to 2nd gear first.  If it just requires extra force, it could be
>misalignment of the shifting rods/cables going from the base of the shifter to
>the gear box.

usually just a lot of extra force, although it sometimes makes a crunching
noise.  Oddly enough, last time a gearbox had to be repaired, it was 5th
gear that had gone...

>When you downshift, do you do double clutching at all?  That might be something
>to try as well.

could give that a try, although given my past record I wonder what the
effects will be!

Chris.

        Digital used to send employees on "Drive & Survive" courses.
        I've rarely changed gear at all since I did mine!
        
        Ian.

    
    Chris, you do take your hand off the gearstick when not changing gear
    don't you ? Driving around with one hand permanently resting on the
    gearstick can wear the synchro-smash out in no time.
    
    If this isn't the problem, then I can only suggest you get a 'proper'
    car with an in-line gearbox - front-engine, rear-wheel drive - these
    tend to be more direct than front-wheel drive boxes, and will probably
    stand up to faster changes.
    
    G.

    Yeah Chris, keep yer hand off yer knob when yer driving...
    
    Helpfully, Laurie.

Seems that I've finally discovered what is probably one of the major 
contributory factors of my gearbox woes (I have a reputation as a bit of a 
gearbox destroyer), which may seem something that is totally obvious, but I 
guess not once you've fallen into a habit.  It would appear that the problems 
stem from the fact that I normally drive with the seat much too far back (I 
used to think it was odd that people 6 inches taller than me could drive my 
car without moving the seat at all), which seems to result in the fact that 
the clutch isn't always fully disengaged when I change gear.

Oh well, so now I know.  Gearchanges are now much easier, although it feels 
strange having the seat noticably further forward than I've done for the last 
8 or 9 years (what's even odder is that I understand that, for my height, my 
legs are on the long side, and my arms are a bit short.  Perhaps that explains 
why I tend to hold onto the bottom part of the steering wheel and can never 
reach the stereo...)

Chris.

    Chris,
    
    Real men don't use the clutch.
    
    Cheers, Laurie.

    
    Chris,
    
    are you or Italian descent ??  'cause it sounds to me like you have the
    "ideal" figure to drive an Italian car...  long legs/short arms if you
    believe what the motoring press write.
    
    
    Then again maybe.....
    
    - MARK -

>    are you or Italian descent ??  'cause it sounds to me like you have the
>    "ideal" figure to drive an Italian car...  long legs/short arms if you
>    believe what the motoring press write.

nah, Celtic (explains the short temper, I guess)  Besides, noone in their 
right mind would let me loose in an Italian car, or at least not one of their 
more exotic ones...

Chris.

    Re .31
    
    That's useful info, Chris. I've found that since moving my seat further
    forward, I can push the clutch right down to the floor and gear changes
    are much smoother.
    
    Goldy.

re.35:

Not to mention the decrease in noise levels.

Dave.

    There was no noise before.
    
    Goldy.

    
    My thoughts exactly Patrick, the 'classic' Italian Driving position
    requires short legs and long arms.
    
    Graham

    
    oooppps  wrong way round then ?? or are the "PC" (Politically Correct) 
    after me again ???
    
    - MARK -