Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Plus Four, Supersport & Plus Six (CX & CXV Generation Vehicles) CX Auto lock

Just coming up to the end of my first year and some 15,000 miles in my 22 P4 and I think I’ve come to terms with the most obvious foibles but the one nagging doubt foremost in my mind at the moment surrounds the procedure to unlock the auto transmission from beneath the car with a tool which wouldn’t look out of place in an abattoir. Please tell me is there anyone out there with the unfortunate experience of having to do the unlocking in anger at the side of the road and can it really be done? In the dark? In the rain? By a man who has little experience of mechanical matters?

I’m a couple of weeks away from taking the car down to Seville for the first time so yesterday I tried a practice run through using the supplied ratchet jack and I gave up pretty quickly as it wouldn’t give me either the height or the confidence I’d need to get anywhere near the hooking point and that was in the relative comfort of my driveway. Would a Spanish breakdown operator know what to do? We’ve done this trip many times on the motorbike and we’ve called out the breakdown people three times for flat tyres so we do have some experience so l may well be whittling over nothing but am I alone in this?

IMHO the auto transmission unlock tool is something for the recovery individual to use before he attempts to drag it onto his transporter. I keep it in the car, but would be unlikely to ever try using it myself.

No idea I bought a manual

At least you have some sort of tool ….! Our new auto Volvo (think they all are now) stuck in gear, locked the wheels and would not restart. We had gone 2 metres but into a village street causing some obstruction . Three tow trucks before one came with skates . Dealer found it was all caused by the computer saying No. Enjoy your trip and trust all goes Well. MM

The recovery driver will either pull it on with the winch leaving the handbrake on hard to stop backlash into the auto 'box...or preferably use some slippy skates

Don't overthink it & enjoy your holiday

For us they said it would scrub, flat spot and damage the tyres, hence the skates finally after an overnight which Volvo paid for via our claim…..MM

The auto release tool lives under the passenger side foot mat hopefully never to be disturbed except for the occasional vacuum.

Jacking up one side in order to climb underneath to gain access is probably not recommended.

Useful diagram from the hand book.

HARDLY ANYONE IS AWARE OF THIS PROBLEM…
In the event of engine failure, the gearbox locks up the vehicle and, until now, you had to jack up the Morgan and, lying underneath it, insert a special tool through a hole in the existing engine floor panel (if there is one at all!) to separate the engine from the gearbox.
A nightmare scenario on a busy country road or even a motorway.
With this solution, in the event of an engine failure, the Morgan can be moved even without the engine running.
The kit is supplied with detailed fitting instructions and contains all the parts required.
Email: birger.gerd.horn@mail.de
Mobile: WhatsApp 0049 1732024080

Not the only make/model where this is a requirement Gerd. Fortunately Ferraris can be accessed from the rear (lift the engine cover) while 911s require the car to be raised for access underneath.
Has caused a few problems in the past at Prescott hill climb where cars have collided with safety barriers.

Do you know what the solution is? Like to know a bit more, before making contact.
Thanks.

Having some experience of breakdown truck operators in Spain I wouldn't be any more confident of their willingness or ability to unlock the Morgan gearbox than I would a UK operator as I doubt many of them have ever come across this question before, especially when it appears there aren't many CX auto owners out there who've actually tried it themselves. As for the helpful diagram in the handbook, it might well tell me where the mechanism is but there simply isn't enough clearance to get at it, not even for a practice. Showing the handbook to the Spanish breakdown man out on the plains, in the rain, might appear a sound approach to some but I'm not so sure. Optimism and a positive approach are I think essential qualities to own and enjoy a Morgan but there's also a need to look out for reasonable precautions which is why I've been in contact with Berger in Germany who has given his approval to sharing his email with TM :-

"" I’ve been driving a Morgan since 1981 and have just developed some useful improvements for the latest models in the CX range. These include a hydraulic bonnet lift kit that I’ve developed myself, and the engine/gearbox disconnect switch you mentioned. Ever since 2019, I’ve been annoyed that the Morgan can’t be moved when the engine is switched off or has broken down. That’s why I’ve developed an installation kit.
This allows you to unlock the lever – which normally has to be pulled using a special tool from underneath the car – directly from the engine compartment. This is achieved via a Bowden cable, concealed beneath the car. I’m offering this kit in Germany, complete with installation instructions and all the necessary parts, for 590 euros. If you’re interested, please feel free to get in touch again.
Best regards, Birger ""

My mechanical knowledge is limited so I leave it here for those with a greater insight. Whilst my first thought is to applaud the chap for approaching the problem but then I begin to question whether my insurers would understand and accept the modification. Either way I'm sure he'd be delighted to hear from anyone else on here and I'm all ears.

Thank you for the explanation. Guessing a bit, it looks like he's devised a mechanism which is fitted to where the factory tool applies leverage and rather than find a way to get under the car with the tool, his mechanism is operated by a lever under the bonnet, via a cable like a motorbike brake/clutch cable.

That would be peace of mind, but not cheap.

Morganmike,

You mention the breakdown truck using skates to get your Volvo aboard - what sort of skates are they please? If ever I should need picking up in the Morgan it'd be useful if I could explain to my recovery people what's needed before they send anyone out and it might help me sound as if I know what I'm talking about (?).

They are 4 wheeled things where the car wheel sits off the ground on skid supported by the 4 wheels. The car's rear wheels don't rotate

These type of skids are sometimes used for moving a car about on a level garage floor. Maybe not suitable for loading it onto a car trailer/recovery vehicle though:

https://www.sgs-engineering.com/ws4000-680kg-wheel-skates

TeddyAds, they are much more beefy than the sgs engineering ones Dave mentioned but what they do is lift the car onto the skates and roller skate to the repair dealership .in our case it was a software issue that caused rage problem.. I said this previously but Volvo instructed us to open all doors + boot, close and it might reboot itself. We thought we might have been on candid camera !!
MM

I was reading something about this last week, and the breakdown driver said that they kept some trays from macdonalds to put under the wheels of locked electric cars to drag them onto the back of the truck.

Classically simple solution that works.

DB

OK, not seen many of those on the back of a breakdown lorry but thanks for the description. Looks like I'm back to just hoping for the best.

I've seen commercial removal co's use a simple rigid plastic board with hand pulls to skate heavy washing machines

Given the number of years that cars can end up with locked wheels have been around, I expect that recovery drivers will be well used to dealing with them, but as suggested it does seem a good idea to forewarn them should your car very unfortunately find it`s self in any locked wheels situation...

A u3a friend, rather unwisely, drove through a flood a couple of years ago and caused his BMW 330d to stop catastrophically. The recovery driver got the car’s owner to sit in the driving seat with his feet hard on the brake while the car was dragged on to the load bed. Sounded rather brutal to me.

How do they get it back off the recovery truck?

MartO its a tipper

DB

Simple - attach the car to a fixed object and drive the recovery truck out from underneath it...

There's a few methods, just so long as the owner isn't in the yard watching

Many years ago our MD was very unhappy that some pleb had parked in his spot, a call the the plant manager and it was 'moved' within minutes by a JCB, and not very carefully !

I knew I'd kept the skateboard for a reason.