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.