Can't select 5th or 6th gear

This occurs randomly but fairly regularly, sometimes I can't put it in to 5th or 6th. The gear stick will not physically move into those positions.

Now I know my gearbox is a bit knackered because a driveshaft oil seal failed when I was driving on the motorway so I did about 150 miles with all the gearbox oil leaking out. Consequently you can hear the bearings when you jack the car up and rock the front wheels forward and backwards.

However I also know that the gear selector plate is bent slightly and is therefore only held on to the gearbox with one bolt so it can move slightly.

Before I start faffing around with the selector plate is this problem caused by that or the knackered gearbox itself?

I don't know about any of this, but if your gear box is broken, and you need another one, I have a spare one lying in my back garden doing nothing!!! If you are interested, get in touch. I'm not asking for money, aslong as you pay the courier fees. Get me at marting2303@googlemail.com.

I would suggest it's an internal gearbox problem, but before that check the linkage is secure on top of the box, you'll need to pull out the battery try to look properly, but they do have a habit of coming loose. Failing that you'll need to whip the end plate off the end of the gearbox to expose the ends of the internal selector rods, clean out all the swarf that's built up there then refit the cover plate, next pull the gearbox drain plug and empty out any oil that may be left, clean off the plug, refit it, remove the refill plug and top up the gearbox (as long as you've had that seal replaced it'll stay in there now) 2 litres should do it, fit the filler plug, refit the battery tray and battery, it should nowbe OK.

Originally Posted by Alfaowner76

I don't know about any of this, but if your gear box is broken, and you need another one, I have a spare one lying in my back garden doing nothing!!! If you are interested, get in touch. I'm not asking for money, aslong as you pay the courier fees. Get me at marting2303@googlemail.com.

I am interested but as an unemployed just finished student I won't know if I can afford even the courier fees until after the 5th if thats ok?

Originally Posted by Smaky

I would suggest it's an internal gearbox problem, but before that check the linkage is secure on top of the box, you'll need to pull out the battery try to look properly, but they do have a habit of coming loose. Failing that you'll need to whip the end plate off the end of the gearbox to expose the ends of the internal selector rods, clean out all the swarf that's built up there then refit the cover plate, next pull the gearbox drain plug and empty out any oil that may be left, clean off the plug, refit it, remove the refill plug and top up the gearbox (as long as you've had that seal replaced it'll stay in there now) 2 litres should do it, fit the filler plug, refit the battery tray and battery, it should nowbe OK.

The v6 gearbox doesn't have an endplate as such, it splits in 2 at the midpoint of the gearbox as far as I could tell, which is a far bigger job than I would like to attempt!

Originally Posted by m0t

I am interested but as an unemployed just finished student I won't know if I can afford even the courier fees until after the 5th if thats ok?




The v6 gearbox doesn't have an endplate as such, it splits in 2 at the midpoint of the gearbox as far as I could tell, which is a far bigger job than I would like to attempt!

You know, I keep forgeting that as I don't work on many V6s, but I am sure it's probably dow to the linkage coming loose, predominantly the left to right cable which controls the up down motion of the selector arm.

Just had it all apart, turns out the plates that hold the selector linkages were on the gearbox in the wrong order, the flat plate was on top of the lipped one and wasn't bolted on. The other bolt on the lipped plate wasn't there so effectively it wasn't held on to the gearbox so everytime I changed gear the plate was moving up and down.

Its all in the correct order now so I'll take it for a test drive at some point and see if it has fixed the problem.

Very good, as I suspected, a problem at the gearbox end of the linkage. Let us know if it's solved it when you get the grin off your face.