Proud new owner - with sticky gearbox

[southall]

Hello all,
I've recently been lucky enough to inherit this 1990 S2



All's well at the moment except the gearbox - it's a struggle getting it into first and sometimes second. I've done some searching on here but can't find a similar problem reported. It's only done 37K? any ideas?

Also, the standard foam box air filter needs replacing and i'm wondering about a cone K&N. Any comments???

Cheers
A.

[Harry1972M]

Hi and welcome - inherited you say !!!

From what I understand most S's are difficult to get into first - try slipping into third and then 1st this certainly works on mine and the same goes for 5th before reverse if yours is crunching into reverse.
Cheers
Graham

[coolcatmaz]

Yep mines the same, need to play about with it a little. Some days it goes straight in other days its very stiff, urmmm I'll rephrase that to awkward, depends what mood the car is in.

My tiv is equally happy to pull away in 2nd if I get fed up of fiddling about.

[Jed-S]

Mine is fine - but then it did have a rebuild a few years ago and has a different spec oil to the manual.

In the owners manual it specifies GL5 75W90 oil but there are views that this should be GL4 75W90. Reason being that GL5 causes wear on the syncromesh rings. I can't vouch for this never having run one long enough but I did find that whe I used GL5 75W90 that it would baulk when changing gear at high revs. A change to GL4 75W90 oil cured this problem. If you want to find out more and see what some of the transmission rebuilders recommend then do a search on the WSCC forums for "Type 9" and GL4. The forum is here: http://boardroom.wscc.co.uk/

Back to the original issue - is there enough oil in the gearbox? Also is it the correct grade? I've heard that when the type 9 box first came out it had EP80 gear oil but this wasn't good when cold and caused gear changing problems so Ford changed to 75W90. Does the gearchange improve when the 'box warms up? If so then I'd do an oil change.

Another thought - is the clutch releasing properly? Worth checking the fluid level on it.

Edited by Jed-S on Friday 27th July 20:25

[Ray S]

Are you sure it has the right oil in it?Mine has red transmission oil in.. .would not do any harm to give it a change.Car looks nice.Ray

Edited by Ray S on Friday 27th July 18:24

Edited by Ray S on Saturday 28th July 06:30

[Barkychoc]

Could it be tired clutch hydraulics ?
Maybe clutch not disengaging fully.

[markbigears]

Alex, I think what you have there is a perfectly working gearbox. They were never a nice fluid box at the best of times, I wouldn't worry.

[ducker]

hi mate, i had the same problem ( ive only had the tvr a couple of weeks ) at first it was a pig to put into gear but i find it's because the car is still cold , i let it run a bit and them the gears are easy , i was use to driving a very modern car were you just turn the key and drive , i find the tvr is brilliant and great fun once you have got the hang of it , they all have there own little issues , if i need to reverse straight away i put the car in gear , clutch in and then start , otherwise it just makes lots of cog grinding sound and unable to get the reverse gear until warm .have fun

[coolcatmaz]

Mines fine once its warmed up, I reverse out my drive and it always goes straight in even from cold, I just have to be firm but gentle then I want 1st gear.

I think half the time we forget just how easy new modern cars are to drive, especially gears and then we think that the tiv has something wrong with it just because things aren't quite as easy or fluid.

[spivvy]

you can get a cone filter but fitting is a problem

or get a replacement Pipercross filter and swap it out the only thing is you will have to fit a crankcase breather onto the oil filler cap to replace the tube that runs into the filter

[surferboi]

Sorry to revive an old topic - some of this looks very helpful, will run my car for a bit before driving it now.

I recently sold a toyota rav4 and got money, as well as a tvr s2, in exchange.

The problems I am having though are as follows:

Same issue as above with changing into reverse, also, once it is in reverse it sticks there and won't change back to first (or any other gear).

I have to turn off the car and then flick it into first, restart it and then hope that once started it will actually want to change gear into second and not stick in first.

The latest issue is that when driving it won't flick down into second, instead it crunches and i have to put it back in third, sometimes being able to get it into first once i am going slow enough.

Managed to get it into reverse smoothly in the past, only by accident though.

I am worried that I will damage the gearbox and at the minute i am concerned about driving it as the gears may stop working.

Any advice? i am going to look into the oil as mentioned above.

[Dave_M]

Can't offer techie advice I'm afraid, but both my S's and cerb's have had the occaisional moment when going into reverse. Usually when there are people watching