Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Gearbox crunches and clicks in every gear

I have recently bought a 1992 Plus 8, and despite a few minor issues, absolutely love it! One issue however I need to address is the difficulty in getting into some of the gears (proverbial crunching sound) and once in gear, there is a loud clicking sound that I can tame by strategically positioning the gear lever in certain positions. I have enquired at some of the local garages around Houston but most of them are reluctant to try and fix a car they are unfamiliar with. If anyone had any pointers that would be very helpful. Also any insight into the type of gearbox / clutch that would be great.

Thanks again.
D

David ... if it still has it, a good place to start might be getting rid of the free play before the clutch pedal hardens up ... a culprit can be the clevis pin where the pedal meets the linkage .... they can wear alarmingly over the years and lose you a lot of clutch travel ... they're not hard to replace (as long as you're able to contort yourself under the dash!🙂) ... and only pennies .... if it's not that then there's adjustment via the threaded end of the rod behind the pedal (nut and locknut and more contortion! 🙂) ... worth trying those first as they're free/cheap.

Beyond that one of the +8 guys will be along soon enough to advise.

One silly thing, as the car is new to you, is that they have a surprising amount of legroom so the pedals are way down there ... when I first got mine (and coming from driving more modern cars for a while) I found I wasn't pushing the pedal all the way down during gear changes .... just a thought.

Good luck

K

Hi David, it sounds like you need to have a look at the bushes between the gearbox (LT77) and the remote gear change. This might explain the poor gear change and perhaps the clicking noise may come from contact between the remote and the propshaft universal joint. Lots of information here. https://www.gomog.com/allmorgan/remoteissues.html.
This is a well known problem, but fixable. Regards.

It is probably the bushes

I had the same problem on my 1993 +4.
See post below how to fix it.

https://www.talkmorgan.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/527537/gearlever-touching-the-propshaft

Dirk, how difficult is it to remove the seats and the hand brake? Also how many bushings are there in total? Any recommendations on here to buy new bushings?

Thanks for your help - sincerely appreciated.
David

Hi David, It's not that difficult to remove the seats. I think that there are 6 bolts to each seat. You can leave the wooden blocks in situ.



You have to disconnect the handbrake to get to the gearlever bolt. You don't have to disconnect the cable nor the switch.



As for the poly bushes, you can by them at a dealer or order them online.



I do hope you can solve the problem. Just take your time, don't rush it.

One thing to be aware of when replacing +8 bushes. The packs of bushes contain 8 bushes. These are intended as replacements for the Rover SD1 Vitesse which is where the remote comes from. Between each bolt and bush is a piece of tubing, (crush tubing). You tighten the bolts until you feel it bottoming out on the tubing. On the top two bolts this sets the correct distance between the remote and the face of the gearbox.

Some where along the way Morgan has replaced the top two crush tubes by longer ones. My 1994 +8 had two bushes, one lipped, one plain, each side of the bolts therefore needing 4 extra plain bushes. It's not a case of just putting some washers in.

Interestingly, by 1994, Morgan or Rover seem to have ditched rubber bushes and gone over to polybushes anyway.

For the sake of clarity the metal inserts are not crush tubes per se simply spacers. They should certainly not be tightened against until they crush as that would defeat their purpose.

True crush washers do exist as a cheap and IMO poor form of engineering, providing pre-load on taper roller bearings as an example.

Noted thanks.