Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Gearbox

Not a good day! Got towed in from Montreal hairpin at Snetterton today, on the 1st sighting lap. Sorry people for the red flag.
No 2nd or 4th gears & “iffy” 3rd.
Anyway after fiddling around with the gear stick we found that all gears were there, but no gate. So basically a sloppy gear lever & if lined up correctly just stiff on selection. Managed the 1hr 40min drive home.
Before I start pulling the car apart can I ask the collective knowledge what I should look for?
Any ideas greatly appreciated.
2011 November 4/4 with the Ford box (MT775?) has been very notchy from new.

Apparently the MT75 gearbox uses an odd synchro hub arrangement on 1st and 2nd gears which may explain selection issues. TM thread here plus downloadable pdf on gearbox overhaul here might provide some insight.

I think Cain is swapping out the gearbox from his 4/4 sport, worth a call ?

Is the issue in the linkage outside the box, there are at least two versions.

Am in the process of getting the tunnel off so I can see the linkage properly. It would seem to be an unusual fault as so far have not found anything on the net.

Probably not, but is this the same type of gearbox as a 2002 4/4?

I only have experience of one gearbox rebuild, which i did twice. The selector rod interacts with the synchro hubs through the semi circular forks. So in simple terms a 4 speeder will have two selector forks (Plus reverse).
One selector fork will do 1st/2nd forward & back.
The other will do 3rd/4th. On a simple 4 speeder, 4th just locks input and output shafts together. A five speeder will be a bit more complex, depending on whether 4th or 5th is 1:1.
If all the gears are there, this suggests that the selector forks and synchro hubs are OK, but there's a locker which functions as part of the selector rod, and locks the other gears out.


This is a Ford Type 9 I found. You can see the single selector rod and the two main forks in bronze. The synchro hubs are immediately below. So those two bronze forks move left and right to get each gear, but when one moves, the other must be locked, and moving the gearstick side to side rotates the selector rod, which will disable one of those forks. When you get the top off, it should be apparent what's going on. Good luck.

Thanks all. Been trying to remove the tunnel all day. Well their is a golden rivet somewhere acca secret screw.
Removed the prop shaft tunnel removed all screws & some lift a dot fastenings. Knifed through the revolting black mastic, the tunnel will now move all of 1/8 of an inch & no more. In theory it should lift up at the rear & there is about 3/4 in rear movement available before hitting the cross member, but it doesn’t.
Oh well will continue tomorrow. I can see a little play in the cotter pin that holds onto the gear shaft.

Check that the handbrake cable isn't "attached" in some way.

Thanks Dave, no it looks fine. I have now got the cover to move up at the rear by about 3/4 in. Where it seems to hit something I can’t see. The car is now a single seater with everything loose, until I can get it on a ramp & 2 people available. Need someone to pull the cover up & someone underneath to see what the obstruction is. One thing I noticed is the handbrake is rubbing on the left side of it’s slot, so something has moved.
It also looks like there is quite a bit of play in the gear linkage. Fingers crossed that is the gear selection problem.