The Dispatch | Expert | Scudo Hub

NastyBaz

Member

From: Netherlands

Registered: 2022-10-28

Posts: 8

1.9d difficulty finding neutral after 5th gear

Hey guys recently picked up an '05 Expert and I've run into an issue when coming down from 5th into neutral. There's very little feeling from the upper, 5th position into the middle, and I've noticed that sometimes I've taken a slight shortcut into getting to neutral. What happens as a result is the gear stick returns to pretty much the neutral position but the transmission stays engaged in 5th. When moving the stick up or down or left to right, it's apparent that the gear stick isn't engaging with the box at all. After repeated wiggling and moving around (sometimes for a couple of minutes!) the stick finally reengages and all the gears come back as normal. Even when being really careful to follow the path, I often have to wiggle the stick a bit after shifting to neutral to get the transmission to actually disengage from 5th.

Some other points:
-When going from neutral to reverse, I often have to try twice to get it to engage in reverse, the stick seems to be in the same position when actually engaged vs not engaged.
-1st gear requires a little more force than desirable to push the stick up into position.

I'm going to change the transmission oil next week so hopefully that frees the shifting up a little. I'm really hoping it's just some issue with the linkage... Any ideas on where to start troubleshooting? Loosing connection to the gearbox on the motorway has been pretty scary..

AlvyLad

Member

Registered: 2021-06-11

Posts: 481

Re: 1.9d difficulty finding neutral after 5th gear

Sounds like linkage is either lose or jamming somehow somewhere
...(short of the actual gear box being kaput)

OAT

Member

From: Borders/Dales

Registered: 2017-01-03

Posts: 1,013

Re: 1.9d difficulty finding neutral after 5th gear

Is it possible that something could have dropped past the gaiter and into the linkage?

My gaiter fell to bits and has not been replaced and I have twice lost gears by things falling in and jaming.

NastyBaz

Member

From: Netherlands

Registered: 2022-10-28

Posts: 8

Re: 1.9d difficulty finding neutral after 5th gear

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I took apart the lower dash yesterday to inspect the linkages and everything looks good. More concerning, when I deliberately put the gearbox in the 'stuck' position with the engine off, I could hear the linkages making contact with the gearbox when I wiggle the stick. It looks like it's something internal. I went ahead and replaced the gearbox oil using @Cliffo's tutorial , to find that only 0.4 litres came out, rather than the normal 1.85 litres! Who knows how long the gearbox has been running dry, but it certainly shifts a bit smoother now. Hopefully it'll slow down the deterioration of 5th..

AlvyLad

Member

Registered: 2021-06-11

Posts: 481

Re: 1.9d difficulty finding neutral after 5th gear

0.4 l come out

Do let us know if it is "healed" now?

NastyBaz

Member

From: Netherlands

Registered: 2022-10-28

Posts: 8

Re: 1.9d difficulty finding neutral after 5th gear

0.4 l come out

Do let us know if it is "healed" now?

To be honest after a week of driving it actually feels a little worse now haha. It's now getting a bit difficult to shift into 1st gear half of the time.. The shifting feels kind of 'raw' or sharp half the time, rather than 'smooth' like it was before. Given that the new Euro 5 emission regulations are coming to the Netherlands in 2025, the van won't have much life left in it anyway, not enough to warrant a gearbox rebuild (who knows how messed up things are in there from running dry for so long). I'm just going to take it easy for the next couple of weeks and pray that it won't deteriorate haha

Last edited by NastyBaz (2022-11-11 09:48:46)