Disaster

TissyD

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First time out with Nellie since having the gearbox rebuilt. Drove like a dream down to Peterborough and most of the way back then "disaster". The gearbox went bang again as I changed gear and we ended up sitting waiting for recovery. Garage removing gearbox today and then the arguments will start as to who's fault it is, the firm who rebuilt it or the garage who fitted it. It ain't gonna be me.
Watch this space.
 
Omg you are not having the best of luck latley . Fingers crossed it is not as bad as it sounds and you get back on the road soon 😩
 
Another setback today. They were sending a tranny truck to collect the motorhome tomorrow, until my son reminded them it was 8 metres long with 3 axles.
 
When I had the 5th gear replaced on my 2004 Ducato under dealer warranty the gear box outfit provided a 6 month warranty for vans rather than the 12 months for cars.
Unfortunately it went again in 12 months - so I had to pay!
Been OK since (touch wood and fingers crossed) probably because I had them fit a lower gear ratio dropping the mph/1000rpm from a ridiculously high 30 to 24.
As my van weighs in at c4T cruising is much easier with the engine doing a sensible 2000 rpm at its single c'way limit and being able to maintain 60 mph in top on gradients.
The failure mechanism was shearing of dog teeth when pulling max torque on engine at too high a road speed due to the remap I'd had done increasing power and torque.
I no longer need as much throttle to maintain speed because of the lower ratio.

Anyway I do hope that your gear box man stands by his work and fixes it - from initial comments it doesn't sound as if he did actually offer a warranty.
 
Our sympathies are with you, we "lost" the use of our Hymer for eighteen months due to the notorious 5th gear issues with older Fiat Ducatos. We ended up purchasing parts from Italy to rebuilt it and consequently had three rebuilds to get it right. Still not completely happy with the finished gear change and drop it out of 5th gear at anything that looks like a hill.
It is a sad outcome for a manufacturer to have even considered putting a gearbox with an after thought of 5th gear on a 2.5 litre on a truck weighing 4000kg.
We like the Hymer but after spending the money and the loss of use, I would not buy another one.
Good luck with yours, Hope the gearbox builders have a better solution for yourselves.
Slainte, Growlie
 
Yes Rae - you probably need the later gear box [Reverse upper left] to get a choice.
The dog teeth are only 3mm wide so when my engine was at rpm for max torque and I put my foot down the extra fuel produced too much torque and spun them straight off - twice!!
£1k for a full rebuild - only a couple of hours work if you replace the gears in-situ by removing the tin cover. This runs the risk of residual teeth in the sump. To forestall this I've put a load of magnets on the tin cover to catch them. I also resist stamping on the throttle in top gear.
I notice that when Fiat developed the 147bhp 'power' engine they only lifted the torque by a 10%.
I cannot understand why Bessacarr ever specified this high gear for a 3850kg van.
Presumably they bought a job lot for the whole range including the smaller ones.
Even so the step up by 50% in mph between 4th and 5th so on the level at 60 became 3000 rpm in 4th.
Now I can run at max legal 50 or 60 mph at a comfortable 2000 or 2500 pm - a much better place to be in the power band.
Even the smaller vans would have benefited from this gearing.
 
So Mark, a remap producing more torque, plus tall gearing, plus a higher
MAM van than standard (I think I've got that right?) Then I would have considered
the 5 ratio box to be 4, and forgot all about using 5th! Something like the original
design before they glued the 5th on the end!
 
Yes Rae - you probably need the later gear box [Reverse upper left] to get a choice.
The dog teeth are only 3mm wide so when my engine was at rpm for max torque and I put my foot down the extra fuel produced too much torque and spun them straight off - twice!!
£1k for a full rebuild - only a couple of hours work if you replace the gears in-situ by removing the tin cover. This runs the risk of residual teeth in the sump. To forestall this I've put a load of magnets on the tin cover to catch them. I also resist stamping on the throttle in top gear.
I notice that when Fiat developed the 147bhp 'power' engine they only lifted the torque by a 10%.
I cannot understand why Bessacarr ever specified this high gear for a 3850kg van.
Presumably they bought a job lot for the whole range including the smaller ones.
Even so the step up by 50% in mph between 4th and 5th so on the level at 60 became 3000 rpm in 4th.
Now I can run at max legal 50 or 60 mph at a comfortable 2000 or 2500 pm - a much better place to be in the power band.
Even the smaller vans would have benefited from this gearing.
Gear teeth dont move in any boxes i have built,its the syncro hubs that do the work locking to gears on inside.
 
Gear teeth dont move in any boxes i have built,its the syncro hubs that do the work locking to gears on inside.

Well said Trev and furthermore gear teeth if sheared won't drop into the sump as the gearbox of these vans is a stand alone unit, unlike for instance the original Alex Issigonis designed FWD Mini where the engine oil was also the gearbox oil.
I believe I am correct in saying the gearbox drainplug should have a strong magnet built into it.
 
It wasn't the gears that stripped it was (as I said) the male dog teeth on the side of the main gear that sheared off - the synchro hub females didn't look too bad but it was changed.
Early 5th gear hubs were double sided as per 3-4 so could be turned round.
I was being slightly imprecise when using the word sump - I was referring to the bottom of the gear box housing or to use one word instead five - sump.
I've put the magnet where the teeth are most likely to fall rather than relying solely on the drain plug.
When the workshop stripped the box they found 5 teeth that had not come out with the extension nor in the gear oil when they drained the sump (sorry housing!)
Probably right about only using 4 gears before I had the lower ratio installed.
If I'd been on the ball at the first failure I could have had it installed free on the dealer.
I've got a spare in case it goes when abroad so a local garage can repair in-situ.
Anyway I'm much happier with the higher revs cruising I can use 5th from 40 mph without labouring the engine.
 
It wasn't the gears that stripped it was (as I said) the male dog teeth on the side of the main gear that sheared off - the synchro hub females didn't look too bad but it was changed.
Early 5th gear hubs were double sided as per 3-4 so could be turned round.
I was being slightly imprecise when using the word sump - I was referring to the bottom of the gear box housing or to use one word instead five - sump.
I've put the magnet where the teeth are most likely to fall rather than relying solely on the drain plug.
When the workshop stripped the box they found 5 teeth that had not come out with the extension nor in the gear oil when they drained the sump (sorry housing!)
Probably right about only using 4 gears before I had the lower ratio installed.
If I'd been on the ball at the first failure I could have had it installed free on the dealer.
I've got a spare in case it goes when abroad so a local garage can repair in-situ.
Anyway I'm much happier with the higher revs cruising I can use 5th from 40 mph without labouring the engine.

I am a bit confused by your post. It sounds like you had a 2004 Ducato with the old type gearbox as fitted to the earlier (pre 2001) models? These boxes suffered from 5th gear failure regularly but not the later models. I had a 2003 2.8JTD on a 5 ton Tag Axle van and had no problems. I did have a Tunit box fitted to give a small increase in power. I never thrashed the vehicle for 2 reasons. First it's a motorhome and secondly the Ducato Clutch had a short life if abused. Mine had the 'long' 5th gear and cruised nicely at 2000 rpm in 5th at around 56 mph.
 
I'm confident that I do have a 2004 gearbox with reverse top left.
My remap is pretty heavy duty with a significant increase in max torque at higher revs (2500).
Both my failures occurred on the motorway when I was traveling at about 65 mph on a slight gradient and decided to accelerate.
Applying full throttle at the rpm where max torque was available simply put too much stress on the dog teeth.
Generally I drive pretty steadily and don't 'thrash' the van - I'm easy on the gear changes which is where normally the greatest risk for dog teeth is.
Whilst I could travel at 50mph [>3.5T speed limit) in 5th gear this was only 1700 rpm and the engine couldn't really cope with inclines even with more fuel being available at these revs with my remap.
The reduced gearing makes for much more pleasant driving and hasn't significantly increased fuel consumption.
The JTD engines have fixed vane turbos which limits tuning options to increasing fuel against available boost rather than calling for note boost as well. This is why turbo effect comes in quite a bit later than on contemporary VW PD engines.
My clutch had worn quite a bit before the first gearbox repair [44k] at the hands of other owners and I had it done at the time. The clutches in the 2 Passats I own(ed) did 300k and 250k before replacement so I'm hoping that I'll get as many years [if not miles) out of this as them - I do a lot less changing gear on the open road now.
 
We were given a 6 month warranty on the gearbox, there has been no argument (yet) about having it done but they want to take it back to Sheffield to do it. The problem is that they need a commerrcial recovery to fetch it. My own local garage offered to take the box off but obviously want paying by the repair shop. Ours is the old 1996 model.
 
Good news - after a fashion!
Will your breakdown people take the van to the workshop or are the year is outfit offering recovery and then you collect?
I note that initially they said they'd come and take it out - I'd be inclined to remind them of that.
If they were recommended by your local garage I think I'd be leaning on them to provide a ramp for removal-reinstall as a minimum.
I was lucky mine was only 45 mins away and I still had all gears but top.
 
The original was taken out by my own garage and then my son took it to the workshop to be rebuilt. My garage then refitted it. Unfortunately the moho wont go on the ramp, it has to be worked on at the storage yard. This time the repair firm wanted to take the whole thing back to their workshop to do it themselves.
 
The original was taken out by my own garage and then my son took it to the workshop to be rebuilt. My garage then refitted it. Unfortunately the moho wont go on the ramp, it has to be worked on at the storage yard. This time the repair firm wanted to take the whole thing back to their workshop to do it themselves.
Hope you get it sorted out soon Chris
 

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