Driving home from Donington on a dual carriageway the other day. 4th gear all of a sudden sounded like a cross between a playing card in bicycle spokes and Sid James with laryngitis. I put it into third as I slowed for a roundabout and the noise stopped. Into second and it appears again. So, this noise is only in 2nd and 4th. Because it's late I thought waiting for recovery in the cold was unappealing so I drove the poxy thing all the way home in 3rd.

I don't know anything about gearboxes, so there's going to be a complete lack of technical jargon from now on:

I whipped the top off when I got to work today and although it seemed to be partiàlly unwound, which I fixed, the big load of gears on the top shaft still seem to flop around toward the front of the gearbox like a prick in a bucket. It doesn't seem to matter where the selectors are, the big load of gears still wobble around like a cock in a top hat, the only exception is 3rd where it seems to be better. There looks to be some sort of bearing in the front of the casing which appears to support this shaft of gears thing, and it looks like its on the skew slightly. Is this a bearing, is it fucked, and can a moron like me fix it OR shall I just lob this box in the skip and put another one in?

I tried to take a video but I dunno if it'll work as I'm trying to post it via an apple gadget and I'm something of a dunce.

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?feature=yo ... ata_player

Video didn't work for me. Sound like input shaft bearing is fucked. Maybe time to learn about gear boxes by removing and stripping it.

What does it involve? I'm not against fixing it but its pretty tempting to just swap it.

Box on the bench, complete strip down. Input shaft can only be removed through the box.

Swap it, then take your time to rebuild the broken one!!!

Haynes and the workshop manuals are your best friends now

Be aware of old buggered boxes floating around. Do you know the condition of the next box?

Viking seems like your fighting against broken gearboxes........

Always look at the bright side..... used gearboxes are fine, put some new oil in it and drive them..... when they breakdown, take the next one and repair the old one..........


If you are clever overhaull the spare gearbox before the one in the car is gone......

Sounds like its going in the skip then. Thanks for the advice, I don't have time to try fixing it if its a big complicated job.

Fuck no, not the skip. Remaining box parts may be useful to repair other boxes.

In an ideal world I wouldn't throw anything away, but I'm not keeping broken gearboxes in case I ever have another one go (which I won't know how to fix) and by some miracle the part I need is like new. There's plenty more in stock.