Bigbananafeet
Accelerating Away
Thought I'd share give something back to a forum that's helped me more than a few times. If this info helps anyone out I'll be happy.
I have been suffering from the issues described in the thread title for some time with my MY2000 TD5 Hardtop.
For a long, long time selecting second gear was very difficult especially from 1st and over the last 6 months or so it seemed to be getting worse. It seemed worse when the car was cold too. The gear change itself was very notchy (often complained about) and would crunch if hurried but more importantly it was just not letting me into the gear. This made start/stop traffic a nightmare until the engine/gearbox were up to temp and even then still not great.
I searched all the forums for R380 2nd gear issues but all I could find was post after post about the crunchy/notchy change but nothing about it being very difficult to select. After reading all of this I just accepted it as a "quirk" of the box and was ever increasingly being filled with dread (nightmares involving expensive phonecalls to Ashcrofts!) as I was finding mine getting worse.
Then last week as I was trying to pull away across traffic from a central reservation I suddenly found I could not select 1st and kept getting 3rd. Eventually managed to get across the road and found every shift was now just a guess between 1st or 3rd and 2nd or 4th. Gear lever also felt even more sloppy than usual and I could move sideways out of any gear!!
I had a look at the R380 overhaul manual and thought I'd check to see it wasn't just a loose grubscrew or something simple before I called the garage. I found a few parts badly worn which I replaced for a lot less than a garage would have charged. After rebuilding I also followed the bias spring adjustment as per the overhaul manual (I had done this before in the past).
My gear box now feels tighter and changes as smooth and as easily as it has ever done under my ownership. 2nd gear is still a tad notchy at first if hurried but no more crunches. Its now easy to get the lever in and all gears selected pretty slickly. It basically changes as nicely as any "normal" car I've driven.
I found the selector housing (FRC7155) slots for the ball lever pins very badly worn. You can see from the video that when I was selecting second one of the pins was locating into the worn area. I also found the socket area on the top where the ball on the lever locates very badly worn. This was allowing a little movement which would be magnified over the length of the gear stick.
The ball lever (FRC8724) also had corresponding wear to match the above as well as wear on the pins that the bias springs press down on. Note how dry and dirty mine was in the picture. I also found it facing the wrong way suggesting that someone has been in there before me. The spring and nylon pad on mine were fine so were re-used.
The plastic bush or "Ball pin seating to trunnion" as the manual calls it (FRC5859) was also very badly worn and allowing movement in the mechanism.
I also replaced the gasket (FTC4510) as I broke it when removing the housing.
I would suggest also checking that the trunnion grub screw is tight as this would account for a lot of movement or slack in the system if loose.
Checking the system any deeper into the box would involve removing more car to gain access to the rest of the remote housing but I managed to rebuild this in an afternoon and could have fixed it the same day if I'd had the parts. I hope this help if you have the above symptoms. Any questions, don't hesitate to ask.
Cheers,
Sandy.
Vid 1
Vid 2
R380 type A selector overhaul page from manual
R380 type A Bias spring adjustment page from manual
I have been suffering from the issues described in the thread title for some time with my MY2000 TD5 Hardtop.
For a long, long time selecting second gear was very difficult especially from 1st and over the last 6 months or so it seemed to be getting worse. It seemed worse when the car was cold too. The gear change itself was very notchy (often complained about) and would crunch if hurried but more importantly it was just not letting me into the gear. This made start/stop traffic a nightmare until the engine/gearbox were up to temp and even then still not great.
I searched all the forums for R380 2nd gear issues but all I could find was post after post about the crunchy/notchy change but nothing about it being very difficult to select. After reading all of this I just accepted it as a "quirk" of the box and was ever increasingly being filled with dread (nightmares involving expensive phonecalls to Ashcrofts!) as I was finding mine getting worse.
Then last week as I was trying to pull away across traffic from a central reservation I suddenly found I could not select 1st and kept getting 3rd. Eventually managed to get across the road and found every shift was now just a guess between 1st or 3rd and 2nd or 4th. Gear lever also felt even more sloppy than usual and I could move sideways out of any gear!!
I had a look at the R380 overhaul manual and thought I'd check to see it wasn't just a loose grubscrew or something simple before I called the garage. I found a few parts badly worn which I replaced for a lot less than a garage would have charged. After rebuilding I also followed the bias spring adjustment as per the overhaul manual (I had done this before in the past).
My gear box now feels tighter and changes as smooth and as easily as it has ever done under my ownership. 2nd gear is still a tad notchy at first if hurried but no more crunches. Its now easy to get the lever in and all gears selected pretty slickly. It basically changes as nicely as any "normal" car I've driven.
I found the selector housing (FRC7155) slots for the ball lever pins very badly worn. You can see from the video that when I was selecting second one of the pins was locating into the worn area. I also found the socket area on the top where the ball on the lever locates very badly worn. This was allowing a little movement which would be magnified over the length of the gear stick.
The ball lever (FRC8724) also had corresponding wear to match the above as well as wear on the pins that the bias springs press down on. Note how dry and dirty mine was in the picture. I also found it facing the wrong way suggesting that someone has been in there before me. The spring and nylon pad on mine were fine so were re-used.
The plastic bush or "Ball pin seating to trunnion" as the manual calls it (FRC5859) was also very badly worn and allowing movement in the mechanism.
I also replaced the gasket (FTC4510) as I broke it when removing the housing.
I would suggest also checking that the trunnion grub screw is tight as this would account for a lot of movement or slack in the system if loose.
Checking the system any deeper into the box would involve removing more car to gain access to the rest of the remote housing but I managed to rebuild this in an afternoon and could have fixed it the same day if I'd had the parts. I hope this help if you have the above symptoms. Any questions, don't hesitate to ask.
Cheers,
Sandy.
Vid 1
Vid 2
R380 type A selector overhaul page from manual
R380 type A Bias spring adjustment page from manual
