Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing trouble changing gear

Hi all We are in Italy with our Morgans. My father in law is having difficulty changing in to 2nd gear up and down. My initial thought was that the clutch needed bleeding or the level was low. Level is fine and normally air in the system causes a problem changing down? Other gears are Ok.

It looks like is gearbox is going then? Any ideas? He has a Rover 2.0 litre engine and has done 200k plus kilometres and is on his secnond clutch

A little more info - year? M16 / T16 might help a bit.

Might sound silly, but where is reverse: left and forward or right and back?

If left and forward its an LT77. Difficulty engaging - does it graunch when you are trying to get 2nd? Does double declutching help?

A couple of quick choices here: either clutch master cylinder on the way out (does it sometimes creep forward if stopped in gear with clutch depressed?), or the synchro on 2nd is going (had that problem with an LT77 in a Discovery - a not unknown fault, but not common).

Cheers,

Sounds like second gear syncro to me. Although I can't speak for that box, clutch problems when selecting gears usually show up initially when selecting reverse and sometimes first.

Has the gearbox oil been recently changed? If not, it does lead a hard life and although it may not help, it's cheap and easy to do.

Hi reverse is a left an up. The car behaves in other gears and doesnt creap. I suggested double de clutching last night and will give that a go today as we still have 1500 miles to travel.

If that works then as you say its second synchro going and we will have to try and manage it until we can get the gearbox replaced

A time ago someone in the German Morgan Forum had a similar problem with his +8. In his case it was the selector gate's mounting. The rubbers were old and stiff.

BR

Christian

Where are you in Italy?

Borghi in Milan is really excellent and, apart from being the Morgan importer for many years, is a specialist in British cars. I can thoroughly recommend him. They are closed for holidays but will re-open on Monday.

English is not a problem if you don't speak Italian.

We are near Cuneo. But yes the Italian club highly recommned Borghi and if necessary that is where we will go. Many thanks

Before changing the gearbox I would check the mounting rubbers on the remote change and make sure the oil is ATF (automatic transmission fluid) Dextron2.

Steve,

It's worth looking to see if the clevis pin that links the clutch pedal to the master cylinder pushrod is worn. At 200k, there's a fair chance that the clevis pin is worn and if so the clutch mechanism will be less effective. If worn, the clevis pin will look like the crankshaft of a singlke cylinder engine.

By the way and this is irrelevant to sorting out your immediate problem, personally I wouldn't use ATF oil in an LT77 gearbox. I've used Castrol fully synthetic for the last 20 years on my Plus 8 and that has included racing with a 285bhp 3.9. You can undertake your own research using google.