Reverse...not reversing!

Dan the 480 Man · Post by **Dan the 480 Man** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 6:29 pm

Sometmes, the car will go from 4th to 3rd, instead of going to 5th. Not pleasant when you're on the dual carriageway. I really have to get the stick as far to the right as i can with the clutch as far down as it will go, and if i'm lucky, it will go into gear.

The other problem is the reverse. The lights will come on, the gearstick will be in the correct position, but the car keeps going forwards-difficult when you're trying to reverse out of a space.

Anybody else had this/solved this problem? It only had a new clutch last year...

Dan

TLindley · Post by **TLindley** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 6:44 pm

This was a problem for me also- (getting it into 5th) Unfortunately these great cars are spolied by weak gearboxes so it seems. On mine, you really have to ram it to get it into 5th. Try pulling it over to the right and down a bit before putting it in the top right. Otherwise its a new gearbox- which i will be needing soon too.

Dan the 480 Man · Post by **Dan the 480 Man** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 6:52 pm

Knackered g/box sounds a bit extreme...Through all gears it's fine, it just has trouble selecting those two....

levensnevel · Post by **levensnevel** » Thu Dec 01, 2005 3:05 am

Well Dan,

Has nothing to do with a knackerded Gearbox

Happened to me some 2 years ago.
As I'm a lazybone i'll just copy and paste my entry in my weblog covering that incident

qte...
286,049 km / 177,743 miles

A Clockwork Cheese Wedge

My Cheese Wedge had a special surprise in store for me in remembrance of the 286,000 km milestone which we crossed this morning. On my weekly shopping run she suddenly decided that the use of reverse gear was no longer needed Luckily it was only on the last address when I had to use elbow grease to pull her out of her parking space to be able to return home. @Home I immediately phoned my workshop and explained the problem. Fortunately they were able to squeeze me in their busy schedule today.
During the 45 km journey I was really careful when shifting gear, being afraid to be left standing on the hard shoulder with no gears at all. I remembered the wise words from a Wegenwacht (RAC) mechanic very well when I got stranded a few years back. He said that whenever they had to assist a stranded Cheese Wedge itâ€™s always one out of two: or the problem is dead easy to solve or the problem is a terminal one. So I was considering my options should the experts declare the gearbox DOA.
Fortunately for me and my wallet the problem turned out to be one in the â€œdead easyâ€ category. 2 Bushings in the gear shifting mechanism were the culprits as one had completely vanished and # two was broken. No new replacement parts were available but as they had 2 donor cheese wedges on their backyard that problem was overcome too. The bushings were mounted and I was happy again Moreover because during the waiting minutes I really enjoyed talking shop about Volvo and seeing all those other beautiful cars at their premises, o.a.: a 122S with very special alloys, a 262, a 780, two P1800 ESâ€™s both light blue metallic !!!, an Austin Healy 3000 mkIII and a AstonMartin DB4 stripped from all her paint and nicely polished
... unqte

Had to pay Â£45.00 to get it fixed

Dan the 480 Man · Post by **Dan the 480 Man** » Thu Dec 01, 2005 8:57 am

Levensnevel

Thankyou very much for that info. After MHUK already mentioning the linkage, i had my suspicions. As soon as i am able to walk again, i'll hobble out to the drive and have a look.

Do you reckon it's a job that could be done myself?

Dan the 480 Man · Post by **Dan the 480 Man** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 8:34 am

Well...

An interesting week...My gearbox is sorted. Some idiot, reassambled it all incorrectly when they done 'whatever they done'. The rod that attaches to the selector, had a mash up of shitty washers and bolts, of which were done up *so* tight that they had started to pull through the rod. Luckily, we had a spare bolt from my 440, put it on and it was much better. Once that was on, it was just a case of 'mm' adjustments until the gears went in properly. Took a while, but we got there. The box now feels the best it ever has (in my ownership anyway).

Also, she started mis-firing again. Turns out that cylinder 1 had been helicoiled badly, and this is the one that was replaced originally (few weeks back). Number 2 still hadn't been done, so it was done (free, naturally!), and she's running again.

Yay!

JohnTurbo · Post by **JohnTurbo** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 2:51 pm

lol...was surprised the heli had failed. We helicoil the ends of NEW eurofighter turbine blades at work, because the coil is made of a harder material, and also can be replaced. [/John breaks his none diclosure agreement]

Murf · Post by **Murf** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 10:07 pm

are you building the eurofighters singlehandedly?

would explain why its so frickin late entering service

Dan the 480 Man · Post by **Dan the 480 Man** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 12:31 am

I was surprised as was the bloke who re-done mine. I am going to dig up the receipts for all the bodge jobs made on the car and 'name and shame' the garages that done them.

I'm quite confident that they will hold-other than my new electrical problem, the car seems to be ok (bangs head repeatedly on some solid oak).

And the last thing the people selling the car said to me...'this is a little gem, we never have any problems...infact, we were going to show it next year'. I can smell...oh...hang on...yep...Bullshit!!

I wanna take it back and say 'this is how the car was supposed to work'. Bloody ham-fisted pillocks...anyway. Feel free to read to comment on my new prob...see you in electrical!