XR2 RACER - Gear box sloppy!! Help needed
Discussion
We have a stock hatch XR2 which we have just had the gearbox overhauled. The problem is that the gearbox is now very sticky, ie. feels like you're dragging the stick through treacle to get it into gear! It also has no automatic centering when trying to put it in neutral, this therefore leads to lots of fluffed gear changes, and this is not what we need when racing!
Does anyone know what could be causing the problem and how we can fix this?
any help appreciated
cheers
Does anyone know what could be causing the problem and how we can fix this?
any help appreciated
cheers
TED! I just checked the classifieds and it appears to have vanished!So, i'm assuming the original gearbox has been refitted with a few new bits and bobs inside.
The B5 5 speed box is quite a simple box with regards to internals and selection, has this sloppy feeling on the lever been there prior to the overhaul?
I ask because the spring bias on the early boxes was done by 2 spring loaded T pieces inside the lever housing, these were a common failure point together with the corresponding section of the lever.
If it's all come since the box was done, i'd be checking the grade of transmission oil as it may well be too thick.
another thing to check is the gear lever set up where the control rod attaches to the selector shaft.
if you marked it before you undid it, the change of internals and the set up of the 5th gear and shift rod adjustment can cause a tightness as it rubs on the selector gate within the box.
hope some of this helps
The B5 5 speed box is quite a simple box with regards to internals and selection, has this sloppy feeling on the lever been there prior to the overhaul?
I ask because the spring bias on the early boxes was done by 2 spring loaded T pieces inside the lever housing, these were a common failure point together with the corresponding section of the lever.
If it's all come since the box was done, i'd be checking the grade of transmission oil as it may well be too thick.
another thing to check is the gear lever set up where the control rod attaches to the selector shaft.
if you marked it before you undid it, the change of internals and the set up of the 5th gear and shift rod adjustment can cause a tightness as it rubs on the selector gate within the box.
hope some of this helps
The gear lever was very sloppy and loose before the overhaul which we got a mechanic to do for us.
Subsequent to this overhaul the gear lever is now very sticky, you say about too thick an oil for it, this sounds like it could be the problem, it really feels now like you are dragging it through thick treacle and there is no return to neutral spring action, could the wrong oil cause all this!!!??
Mark: New car? I think not mate, just spent abit on new engine for this one!! cheers anyway
Subsequent to this overhaul the gear lever is now very sticky, you say about too thick an oil for it, this sounds like it could be the problem, it really feels now like you are dragging it through thick treacle and there is no return to neutral spring action, could the wrong oil cause all this!!!??
Mark: New car? I think not mate, just spent abit on new engine for this one!! cheers anyway
How do you check the gear lever adjustment? Is this easy? I like the fact it's FREE, it's cost us quite a bit to freshen the car up and we're pretty keen on getting the gear box working well, unlike last season!!!
There doesn't seem to be a huge ammount of horizontal movement, as i say it's like going through treacle, same with vertical movement, ie. into and out of the gears....
Would you know of any Essex based people who are very good with these gear boxes?
There doesn't seem to be a huge ammount of horizontal movement, as i say it's like going through treacle, same with vertical movement, ie. into and out of the gears....
Would you know of any Essex based people who are very good with these gear boxes?
Sorry, I tend to avoid the south end of the country unless i'm booked on a free flight off this rock 
there should be a small hole in the bottom of the black gear lever housing, a drill bit can be inserted in here to lock the lever in place, then select 4th gear on the box and do up the clamp on the selector rod.
Later selectors had a slightly different placement of the locking hole, but it works about the same.
Before you get to involved in the adjusting though, try this
undo the selector rod and detatch it from the selector shaft (tipex is a good way to mark it's position prior to removal
)
With the rod hanging down out of the way, you'll see a small hole in the selector shaft (about 5mm dia) insert a punch/prybar through the hole and engage the gears by twisting/pushing/pulling the rod.
The gears should engage with a positive "clunk", if it still feels treacle like, I think it's going to be time to pull the box out again.
I presume you've given the car a jolly good tatering to see if it's just newness thats firming it up......works sometimes
there should be a small hole in the bottom of the black gear lever housing, a drill bit can be inserted in here to lock the lever in place, then select 4th gear on the box and do up the clamp on the selector rod.
Later selectors had a slightly different placement of the locking hole, but it works about the same.
Before you get to involved in the adjusting though, try this
undo the selector rod and detatch it from the selector shaft (tipex is a good way to mark it's position prior to removal
) With the rod hanging down out of the way, you'll see a small hole in the selector shaft (about 5mm dia) insert a punch/prybar through the hole and engage the gears by twisting/pushing/pulling the rod.
The gears should engage with a positive "clunk", if it still feels treacle like, I think it's going to be time to pull the box out again.
I presume you've given the car a jolly good tatering to see if it's just newness thats firming it up......works sometimes
Cheers Nighthawk, I'll have a go at that with my Haynes manual in hand!
After the new engine and gearbox overhaul, we took the car to Mallory park for bedding in the engine. We did around 60-70 laps, about 21/2hrs track time, obviously not at high rpm, gradual build up and the gear box didn't get any looser at all throughout the whole session.
Infact when we did the rolling road after, the gears were so sticky the guys doing the rolling road kept fluffing the changes and even said to us that there was a definate problem with the box. Since that we haven't taken the car out for fear of a high speed gear fluff and then engine BANG!! again!!!
After the new engine and gearbox overhaul, we took the car to Mallory park for bedding in the engine. We did around 60-70 laps, about 21/2hrs track time, obviously not at high rpm, gradual build up and the gear box didn't get any looser at all throughout the whole session.
Infact when we did the rolling road after, the gears were so sticky the guys doing the rolling road kept fluffing the changes and even said to us that there was a definate problem with the box. Since that we haven't taken the car out for fear of a high speed gear fluff and then engine BANG!! again!!!
I hope you get it sorted, and please feel free to mail me if you need to.
Work tends to get in the way of personal mail though during the daylight hours, but i'll reply as soon as possible to any mail.
I agree that if the bedding in session didn't loosen it up, it's not going to get any better by thrapping the nuts off it.
Carry on
Work tends to get in the way of personal mail though during the daylight hours, but i'll reply as soon as possible to any mail.
I agree that if the bedding in session didn't loosen it up, it's not going to get any better by thrapping the nuts off it.
Carry on
dank said:
We have a stock hatch XR2 which we have just had the gearbox overhauled. The problem is that the gearbox is now very sticky, ie. feels like you're dragging the stick through treacle to get it into gear! It also has no automatic centering when trying to put it in neutral, this therefore leads to lots of fluffed gear changes, and this is not what we need when racing!
Does anyone know what could be causing the problem and how we can fix this?
any help appreciated
cheers
Without being too technical whoever did the gearbox rebuild needs to do the job again.
I say this as somebody dealing with these gearboxes daily.
The B5 & IB5 have a superb gearchange as a rule.
I suspect the selector shaft is bent for starters. I'd go through the box VERY carefully and rebuild where anything is suspect.
When you rebuild the ONLY oil to use is Castrol SMX-S.
GavinPearson said:
Without being too technical whoever did the gearbox rebuild needs to do the job again.
I say this as somebody dealing with these gearboxes daily.
The B5 & IB5 have a superb gearchange as a rule.
I suspect the selector shaft is bent for starters. I'd go through the box VERY carefully and rebuild where anything is suspect.
When you rebuild the ONLY oil to use is Castrol SMX-S.
Your job sounds interesting, you working ON transaxle development for FMC over there?
A distorted selector shaft wouldn't have been a thought of mine at this early stage, as the person who built the box would have been either a real bodge merchant or a con artist not to have spotted it, as installing the shaft into the casing would have been difficult and easily noticed. Thats not to say it isn't/hasn't been the case (i really do hope not too).
The XR2 was a pain in the backside to get the box in and out because the plastic body kit used to get in the way of the stabilizer bar front mountings.
I'd agree with the comment about the usual quality of the gear selection, especially the later improved level.
Dank, do you have any idea of the extent of the rebuild and which internals were replaced?
nighthawk said:
Your job sounds interesting, you working ON transaxle development for FMC over there?
A distorted selector shaft wouldn't have been a thought of mine at this early stage, as the person who built the box would have been either a real bodge merchant or a con artist not to have spotted it, as installing the shaft into the casing would have been difficult and easily noticed. Thats not to say it isn't/hasn't been the case (i really do hope not too).
I do manual transaxle and transmission development - the group I am in is concerned with improving reliability of the transmission system, so I deal with clutches, gear cables etc too. All good fun....
GavinPearson said:
I do manual transaxle and transmission development - the group I am in is concerned with improving reliability of the transmission system, so I deal with clutches, gear cables etc too. All good fun....
If your with FMC over there, Any chance you could look at the clutches fitted to V184 transits?
They don't have enough reserve potential then maybe have a word with FMC uk and LUk/valeo to get your ideas signed off
woefully underspec'd clutch and flywheel set up.
Back to topic
nighthawk said:
If your with FMC over there, Any chance you could look at the clutches fitted to V184 transits?
They don't have enough reserve potential then maybe have a word with FMC uk and LUk/valeo to get your ideas signed off
woefully underspec'd clutch and flywheel set up.
Back to topic
I have enough "fun" with my current job.
However, Transit team have just had an ex-SVE Transmissions Systems Engineer join them who I really rate highly so I am sure that whetever problems exist will soon be fixed.
Glad something is changing on Transit, V184 has always been a basketcase....
The Mt75 was a good box, but someone managed to get the ratios wrong, so rather than re spec the ratio, what did the dealers get told to do when the clutches and dmf died?
Yup, change the rear axle for the sake of a few gears
no wonder FMC has no money 
Thankfully the new 6 speed on the 137Ps seems to be a bit better.
Back to topic
The Mt75 was a good box, but someone managed to get the ratios wrong, so rather than re spec the ratio, what did the dealers get told to do when the clutches and dmf died?
Yup, change the rear axle for the sake of a few gears
no wonder FMC has no money Thankfully the new 6 speed on the 137Ps seems to be a bit better.
Back to topic
Hi Nighthawk,
Well I've spoken to the guy who fixed the car, and he has told me the following problems.
The gearbox itself is fine, standard XR2 item, the problem is with the change mechanism. It seems we need a new bit or an old one (ie. breakers yard) which we cant seem to find. The car is a 1987 XR2 and he said this part is hard to find as it has to be one from an '86-87 XR2....Iam getting abit worried about the time frame as the season is not far away and we have testing and bedding in to do....!!! ( panic beginning to set in...)
Any other options that we can look at or opinions? Or even better anyone have a change mechanism!!!???
Well I've spoken to the guy who fixed the car, and he has told me the following problems.
The gearbox itself is fine, standard XR2 item, the problem is with the change mechanism. It seems we need a new bit or an old one (ie. breakers yard) which we cant seem to find. The car is a 1987 XR2 and he said this part is hard to find as it has to be one from an '86-87 XR2....Iam getting abit worried about the time frame as the season is not far away and we have testing and bedding in to do....!!! ( panic beginning to set in...)
Any other options that we can look at or opinions? Or even better anyone have a change mechanism!!!???
Hi dank
I'm glad it's turning out to be an external issue,
if you can let me know some details of what you need, i'll be happy to see if it's still available to the dealer network
The main bits and bobs to cause shift concerns were the bits I mentioned earlier. The lever and the 2 little plastic pressure pads (look like T shapes with a spring tension applied)
mail me a private mail address and we can talk about it, or i'll give you my mobile number.
Be quick though......I finish for xmas tomorrow night until the new year, after tomorrow i'm banned from playing with cars for the festive period.
Brian
I'm glad it's turning out to be an external issue,
if you can let me know some details of what you need, i'll be happy to see if it's still available to the dealer network
The main bits and bobs to cause shift concerns were the bits I mentioned earlier. The lever and the 2 little plastic pressure pads (look like T shapes with a spring tension applied)
mail me a private mail address and we can talk about it, or i'll give you my mobile number.
Be quick though......I finish for xmas tomorrow night
until the new year, after tomorrow i'm banned from playing with cars for the festive period. Brian
dank said:
Hi Nighthawk,
Well I've spoken to the guy who fixed the car, and he has told me the following problems.
The gearbox itself is fine, standard XR2 item, the problem is with the change mechanism. It seems we need a new bit or an old one (ie. breakers yard) which we cant seem to find. The car is a 1987 XR2 and he said this part is hard to find as it has to be one from an '86-87 XR2....Iam getting abit worried about the time frame as the season is not far away and we have testing and bedding in to do....!!! ( panic beginning to set in...)
Any other options that we can look at or opinions? Or even better anyone have a change mechanism!!!???
I beleive there are 2 different types of change mechanism, one where you have to press down for reverse and one where you don't but the gearbox has a mechanism to stop it going into reverse from 5th gear. I run a Series 2 '97 RS Turbo box with the mechanism in my Mk 1 Fiesta but with the push down gear stick and it runs fine in terms of gear selection. Try taking the selector shaft off the gearbox and seeing if the gearbox will swing through the neutral gate fairly easily with something like a screw driver just to make sure it isn't the gearbox, then try changing the entire change meachanism from another car to see if that cures it.
Paul
Hi Guys
Cheers for all the advice.
Progress report: Well at present a friend has checked the Ford dealer network and the unit is no longer in stock...
not good (thanks for offering to do this also Nighthawk). But he has managed to source us a second hand whole external remote unit ( this is what he called it, I am not exactly sure at the moment what this unit consists of!!?)We are going to fit this onto the car next saturday and see how it goes with a new remote unit.I will post here the results of what happens, hopefully it will be good news. Ford told us that we could order the bits seperately to build a new unit ourselves, but this is what our mechanic was originally trying to do and came unstuck when he couldn't source one of the bits anywhere! So hopefully this second hand unit will be in good enough working order. To be honest I am a little suprised that there is no way of getting new replacement parts for XR2's gearboxes etc. as there are cars still on the road and lots in stock hatch championship!!!
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