Gear selector cable

Firemoth · 2019-11-02 00:50:17

Just had a gear selector cable fail on me

Not helpful while I'm on holiday in Luxembourg. Just driven back 20 miles in 3rd gear. I could get 4th but felt very notchy and decided at near midnight, if I can have 3rd, keep hold of it. Luckily had no hills I couldn't get up in 3rd........ Just!

Successfully bodged for now

Good old cable ties!!!!

Next job when I get home, new gear cables.

Interested to see if it's a job anyone has done before. Past experience on other cars tells me it's not a difficult job, but fiddly and frustrating. Any hints or tips? What access is needed, etc?

Cheers

k_wyndham_t · 2019-11-04 10:14:35

No but I have done that bodge on a few cars and TBH its lasted as long as I have owned the vehicles. wink

Firemoth · 2019-11-04 11:37:15

k_wyndham_t wrote:

No but I have done that bodge on a few cars and TBH its lasted as long as I have owned the vehicles.

I'm very very tempted to just leave it as it is. It feels fine and the cable ties don't seem to be under strain, the only thing making me wary is we do a lot of mad daft trips away (for example we're going to Poland at the end of January for a few days) and I try to keep things tip top to reduce the risk of issues. I don't do breakdown cover because the price is through the roof because of the age of the car, and just not worth it so I tend to take all my tools with me as backup. But I'd prefer to not need them lol

Casper · 2019-11-04 12:14:44

Firemoth as your insurance company about breakdown cover. I have 365 days UK cover and 90 in euro land with no limits on age, height and length. This was though my broker AIB Insurance at a cost of £75 a year. Better than the 300 RAC wanted

Firemoth · 2019-11-04 12:37:36

Casper wrote:

Firemoth as your insurance company about breakdown cover. I have 365 days UK cover and 90 in euro land with no limits on age, height and length. This was though my broker AIB Insurance at a cost of £75 a year. Better than the 300 RAC wanted

I still wouldn't bother to be honest. All they'd do is take you to a garage. Still have whatever the issue would be

tee_cee · 2019-11-04 12:43:39

Firemoth wrote:

Casper wrote:
Firemoth as your insurance company about breakdown cover. I have 365 days UK cover and 90 in euro land with no limits on age, height and length. This was though my broker AIB Insurance at a cost of £75 a year. Better than the 300 RAC wanted
I still wouldn't bother to be honest. All they'd do is take you to a garage. Still have whatever the issue would be

Have used breakdown service abroad before (Nationwide Flexplus) and the real advantage was having someone on the end of the phone that speaks the local language and can deal with the garage.
Funny enough my gear linkage fell off in Spain and we got towed to a local garage (no insurance) and he just shrugged his shoulders and suggested that it could cost €€€ thousands.
After walking the streets found another garage and got towed again. They stuck a tiewrap on and ordered the part for me. Whole thing was very stressful.
Incidentally, I think there may be 2 of these linkages - in my case I lost all the gears.

Last edited by tee_cee (2019-11-04 12:49:21)

Firemoth · 2019-11-04 12:48:30

tee_cee wrote:

Firemoth wrote:
Casper wrote:
Firemoth as your insurance company about breakdown cover. I have 365 days UK cover and 90 in euro land with no limits on age, height and length. This was though my broker AIB Insurance at a cost of £75 a year. Better than the 300 RAC wanted
I still wouldn't bother to be honest. All they'd do is take you to a garage. Still have whatever the issue would be
Have used breakdown service abroad before (Nationwide Flexplus) and the real advantage was having someone on the end of the phone that speaks the local language and can deal with the garage.

Yeah I get where you're coming from. But in 10 years I've only been really stuck once (turbo blew on a ford galaxy last year in Germany) and as much of a pain as it was I still managed to get sorted with a couple of days.

Thinking about it, I think I have queried cover through my insurance but I was over their age limit. 20yr I think

Casper · 2019-11-04 14:25:15

I used to not bother also then i bought an LDV Convoy big_smile Having said that its never broke down. My first trip to Italy on a Motorbike i had AA 5 Star. Did the trip and the charging system went and took out the battery also on the way back to the ferry port. Limped on the ship and rolled off. Found a nice AA man who have me a nice new Astra to drive home in and the bike to follow a few days later. Kind of glad as it was biblical rain and Portsmouth back to Scotland was not looking like a very pleasant trip.
Only other time was again in Italy. Little cost town on out way to Monaco called Spotorno the car (Mk2 Cavalier) started to run like crap and conked out at a nice little hotel with free parking. We had no cover this trip but it was a lads road trip so we did what four lads would do, Hit the bar. Spent four days drinking that hotel dry and one of the guys was starting to panic about getting home so he phoned the UK and bought AA cover. Think at the time we had to wait 48 hours before you could call out. I thought sod that and opened up the rocker cover to find a broken rocker arm. Rook out all the broken bits and bump started the car with plenty chock and revs it started to run on its own. Checked out hotel and we drove all day up to Amsterdam for more drink. Few days later that car took us all back home to Edinburgh. Something like 1200 miles on three cylinders. big_smile

kenbw2 · 2019-11-05 12:19:30

Casper wrote:

I used to not bother also then i bought an LDV Convoy Having said that its never broke down. My first trip to Italy on a Motorbike i had AA 5 Star. Did the trip and the charging system went and took out the battery also on the way back to the ferry port. Limped on the ship and rolled off.

I had similar with my Peugeot 106. Drove all round Europe, and just as we got to Dunkirk I smelled diesel, turns out one of the injector pipes had cracked. I only had UK breakdown cover, so I shoved a tshirt round it to absorb the liquid and hoped the port didn't notice. Kept the engine running as little as possible as we queued.

Got to the other side, stopped at the first layby and got towed home.

Jowettdriver · 2019-11-05 17:57:19

I used to be a member of ADAC which for about £100 a year covered all my vehicles no mater how old, hear and within Europe. Unfortunately my cover lapsed and they are no longer taking on new business.

I only ever used them once, I was in the south of France with our Fiat Ducato motorhome, when the left hand track rod snapped off where it joins the rack, luckily as we were pulling out of a layby. One of those breakdowns that without cover would have been a serious problem. ADAC were great, we waited about 50 minutes for a tow truck who took us to a local garage who had it repaired within 24 hours.

What made the whole thing so annoying was that I had only replaced the steering rack 500 miles before, as the old one was leaking and a re-conditioned one was the simplest option. So the track rods were supposedly new!

vaz2121 · 2019-11-07 00:55:29

I must be stupid or Lucky (Both)... all those years paying for breakdown cover... europe inc and never using it............
Once drove an F12 Volvo after botching up a gearbox leak from a reverse light switch from just South of Valencia and got it repaired back home........
Another time Returning from Spain with a load of Oranges lost a set of wheels inc hub & brake drum (somewhere about Toulouse) off the front axle of an old spread axle tilt trailer w'ed got .........
The Police (Gendarmerie) even helped me recover them (Without arrest) ..............
I then jacked up axle threw a chain around it and over chassis .... Secured it with a buckshee nut N bolt and drove it home........

(The impatience of youth)

I'm admitting to nothing .....That was actually someone else I helped..........

(We) Still have it (breakdown cover) ... Mostly for Memsaab when on motorway to visit her kids and grand kids

Last edited by vaz2121 (2019-11-07 01:43:59)

GRIFFIN · 2019-11-22 02:00:44

I recently had gear cable fail on my Dispatch and the AA man did a temporary repair with cable ties to get me home, the 10 mile journey. Only trouble was I was going 300+miles to Surrey. When I got home I replaced the puny AA cable ties with some stronger ones of my own and a bit of duct tape, before using the gear cables off my old Scudo. To be honest, I'd have still been using cable ties and duct tape if I hadn't had the spare van, as my options were £120 from the local spares shop or £60 quid from e-bay but they may not have been the correct fitment.

Whichever way you look at it, a handful of cable ties in the glove box is always going to be the cheaper option.

Last edited by GRIFFIN (2019-11-22 02:02:29)

Firemoth · 2019-11-23 12:28:13

300? I had 800 to do lol. As it happens they're still on. My mate at the motor factors can't get any, Citroen have stopped stocking them, and the ones on eBay, although say they're for this car they list a slightly different part number so I'm wary of getting them. Everything is still fine so I think I'll be keeping as is. As you say, keep a few cable ties in the car just in case. If it does go again, it's 15 minutes on the hard shoulder (if that's even necessary) to sort it and it's good to go again. Normally I like things to be right, and it will grate on me, but when the fact is the only available replacement might not fit, I'm not going to the effort of potentially doing the job to find it's not right, and then possibly making the old cables worse

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#1 2019-11-02 00:50:17

Gear selector cable

#2 2019-11-04 10:14:35

Re: Gear selector cable

#3 2019-11-04 11:37:15

Re: Gear selector cable

#4 2019-11-04 12:14:44

Re: Gear selector cable

#5 2019-11-04 12:37:36

Re: Gear selector cable

#6 2019-11-04 12:43:39

Re: Gear selector cable

#7 2019-11-04 12:48:30

Re: Gear selector cable

#8 2019-11-04 14:25:15

Re: Gear selector cable

#9 2019-11-05 12:19:30

Re: Gear selector cable

#10 2019-11-05 17:57:19

Re: Gear selector cable

#11 2019-11-07 00:55:29

Re: Gear selector cable

#12 2019-11-22 02:00:44

Re: Gear selector cable

#13 2019-11-23 12:28:13

Re: Gear selector cable

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