Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Transmission slack 1973 +8 RHD, 4 speed Rover box

Hi, our 1973 +8 RHD is fitted the original 4 speed Rover gear box. The box is not noisy and the sync is functioning, but there is a lot of slack in the gear stick and some times it's difficult to find 2nd gear and even 1st. I've changed to oil to 20W/50 Valvoline VR1 racing mineral but with little improvement. We accuired the car half a year ago and I don't know which oil the former owner used in the box. Also and even more annoying is slack in the transmission line. When speeding up and down at relatvely low speed you really feel it and at start and stop as well. Not pleasant and it prevents my wife to drive it. What to do? Buy a 5 speed box and where to buy it and how much would it cost? Or a Mazda MX-5 conversion (which is rather expensive though)? Cheers /Finn

I hate doing the old 'take it to a garage' thing, but you could try an email to Jack and Billy at JB Sports Engineering

They may at least be able to offer an diagnosis of the problem as you're not UK based.

I do not know if the Morgan application uses the original Rover gear selection hardware. If it does, these were prone to wear and slack in the original Rover application. The JB Sports Engineering suggestion above is an excellent idea - then you will be in touch with people who actually know their stuff!

Be careful with oil though - if I remember correctly, the gearbox has an oil pump that could be fussy about oil choice.

Plenty of stuff here GoMog gearboxes. Yours seems fairly early but my 97 +4 had linkage issue that sound like your selection issue. I would change the oil as a start

Hi Sensel. I have a 1974 RHD Plus 8 and it had similar problems selecting gears. I took the gearbox cover off, a bit of a pain getting it to go over the gearstick, handbrake lever and under the dash but with bit of fiddling I got it out.

I then took off the selector unit and found all bushes were worn or non-existent, I replaced the shaft bushes, available from eBay and replaced anything else I could see, also there is a nylon type gear lever sealing bush that the ball of the gearlever rotates in , mine had disintegrated, you can still change gear but if it is missing, the gearlever will be all sloppy. Again I think these are still available on eBay

I changed the oil to Automatic transmission fluid (ATF) . After doing all this, the gear selection was transformed or it was until the car warmed up, then changing gear started to get a bit sticky, this was until I realized I needed to put my foot down further on the clutch peddle there is probably not much left of my clutch! but all’s well at the moment. So I am happy.

I haven’t experienced any play in the transmission but I would first look at the 2 universal joints for play and while you’re in that area the rear suspension. Hope this is of some help.

Thanks to all for your advise and comments. Seems as I got myself yet another winter project... :-) Cheers /Finn

One of my friends from Oz sent this to me overnight

Please drop the ATF out of the box ASAP. This is incorrect lubricant for this box , the later Rover boxes (LT77, and R380) do use ATF but they run different oil pumps.

The correct spec for this box is Castol VMX 80. Please use that or an equivalent.

You risk finding lots of filings in the oil at best, and more serious damage at worst.

Please do it as soon as you can. Please also see my post below about the correct procedure to rectify the issues.

John

GoMog is a useful resource but NOT an infallible one. On this occasion the advice given (almost certainly in good faith) is in correct.

My friend John from down under spotted this and made the following comments:

The fix is usually pretty simple , quick and cheap . providing the correct parts are fitted and the correct oil (Castrol VMX 80) used

There are write ups on the Morgan Owners Club Australia website. Here are links to the 2 relevant articles.

https://www.morganownersclub.org.au...Plus-8-Rover-4-Speed-Gearbox-Rattles.pdf

https://www.morganownersclub.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Plus-8-Rover-4-Speed-Gearbox.pdf

GoMog is certainly not infallible. It is a 4000+ (?) page collection of community offerings and lots of stuff from yours truly
collected over a 30+ year period. Sadly, I have nothing much up on Rover 4-speeds beyond links to the articles you refer to above
in Plus 8 index.Gearbox Been there for quite a while. Can you point me
to which advice exactly was incorrect? I gather it can't be the links to you post to the very fine MOCA club. Yours are the same as
GoMog's.

MOCA has a varied, very high level of mechanical expertise, reflective of the country. I look forward to the regular editions of the
EAR. I need all the help I can get!

Lorne