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Looking for some advice / insight RE clutch / gearbox


Stephanie

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Bit of background, bought the car on 51K miles in 2016, predominately been used for motorway driving, just clocked over 100K miles last week, then 3 days ago as I’m driving along in 6th gear on a national speed limit road, it starts slipping, took it down to 5th still slipping but not slipping as much, managed to get it home in 3rd at low speed, limited slipping in 3rd gear. By the time I made the 4 mile journey home both 5th & 6th gear were completely gone and just revving when in them. But no major noises, crunching, clunking nothing.

 

So I came to the conclusion it needs a new clutch, fair wear & tear, just hit over 100K miles, I thought annoying, but fair play.

 

Booked in the local garage (one I could just about drive it to 2 miles down the road from my house). They’ve fitted a new clutch, phone me up and say “All done ready to go, we just need payment. Oh and btw 6th gear isn’t working, but other than that it’s all good”.

 

They think it’s a gear box issue, but I can’t understand how it was working absolutely fine last week, no noises, clunks nothing and had given no signs whatsoever of any gearbox issues. 6th gear was a dream. Now the new clutch is fitted and now all of a sudden 6th gear doesn’t engage at all and it just revs…

 

I’m hoping it’s just linkage, not put back in the right place. Easily rectified by a mechanic who knows their way around these cars…

 

The car is 18yrs old, over 100K miles, had I known there was a gear box issue or 6th gear would be completely gone I definitely wouldn’t have got the clutch done and would have probably sold it.

 

I now find myself in a bit of a tricky situation! Obviously I want to pay the garage for their time & parts for fitting the new clutch, no dramas. But I feel a bit robbed because the car is 99% useless to me without 6th gear, as 99% of my driving is motorways commuting for work or driving to see distant friends & family.

 

Is there anyway they could have caused this whilst fitting / testing the clutch ? Or is it just a freak situation that gearbox 6th gear has gone whilst in their possession ? Or is it more than likely the linkage ?

 

It’s been left that the mechanic has said he will have another look at it to see what’s the problem, and if it is gear box he’ll come back with gear box prices… (but my gut is he’s already tried everything and just can’t work it out).

 

Obviously given the age & mileage of the car, I will very unlikely be forking out even more money in the thousands for a new gear box…

 

Any advice / insights welcome, I’d be grateful for any input and if you know of any 350z specialists in Hampshire that I could take it to, please do recommend! I’m hoping to square up with this local garage, then take it to a specialist to (hopefully) just sort the linkage out and get 6th gear sorted.

 

Many thanks,

Stephanie

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Hi Stephanie, so to start with, it is very very very unlikely the 6th gear issue would have been caused by the garage doing the clutch, apart from removing the box and the prop it’s relatively straight forward, the fact they say everything else is fine means it sounds like they’ve done their job, just also check the clutch pedal as they’re a pain to bleed up. 
It’s usually the 3rd gear synchro that shits itself because it’s made of chocolate but I have seen other people have issues with 6th, it is however strange that 5th is now fine. Id suggest the garage drop the gearbox oil and check for swarf inside, that’ll give you a pretty good idea what’s going on inside. 
There essentially isn’t any linkage the gearbox is straight under the gearstick.  
 

the other issue is you’ve already said that 5/6th weren’t properly working when you had this issue, every garage has a “duty of care” so if something unfortunately happens whilst in their care it’s down to them to make sure it leaves them in same condition it came in “aside from the repair you’ve paid for or agreed to” but they will say we can’t guarantee this issue wasn’t already happening before you brought it in and they needed to put a clutch in to test it properly 

 

hope this helps 

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Hi Stephanie

 

I seem to recall from one experience I had after a gearbox change,  that if the 'gate' under the lever which provides the slots for each gear is not correctly positioned maybe that is meaning it is effectively not able to shift to sixth gear from neutral properly.

 

As I say, just a thought.

 

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Not sure you read that right Azure? The gearbox had no engagement issues prior to going in for a clutch, it was slipping in gears but thats to be expected, but it looks like Steph could engage all the gears. They have put a new clutch in and now 6th is not available, so the car is not being returned as arrived. I do remember adjusting the gate on mine (this was over ten years ago now so memory is hazy) on the advice of Zmanalex who I bought a clutch from. 

 

Edit: sounds similar to what young Colin said above...definitely see if you can get Zman on for a chat. 

Edited by coldel
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3 hours ago, Ebized said:

Hi Stephanie

 

I seem to recall from one experience I had after a gearbox change,  that if the 'gate' under the lever which provides the slots for each gear is not correctly positioned maybe that is meaning it is effectively not able to shift to sixth gear from neutral properly.

 

As I say, just a thought.

 

My money is on this, the gate needs readjusting so it goes into 6th freely. 

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If it is going fully into gear and there is no drive then it will be the gearbox I am afraid.

 

If it is simply baulking when trying to engage 6th gear than as above, it will require an adjustment to the shifter plate.

 

However, I recall a few weeks ago, a forum member had a selection issue after fitting a new clutch and it transpired that the shifter plate had been refitted the wrong way round so have a look at that.

The stop part of the plate should be on the driver's side as per in the image.

if this is the case then all you will have to do is flip the plate and adjust as required.

 

image.jpeg.c06100f6a4108464583a7d6bf85dbd36.jpeg

 

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