Gearbox back in again...Small problem...

Glad to hear things have (for the most part) worked out for you. Good luck fixing the remaining issue and you can take pride in the job you did. All the best!

 

Lars, when you connect the shifter to the box pin, have someone sit in the car and hot the shifter PERFECTLY in the middle if the gate between the 2nd and 3rd gear. Make sure the box is in the middle of neutral too. Connect and tighten.

The next bit you do by adjusting the cable tension and best done with the help of someone else... Then shift it in 2nd, then 3rd then 4th ten 5th, in each check the clearance between the gate bottom and the shifter stick with the clutch in, and wiggling the stick until it settles.

The gap between the gate when in 2nd and 4th needs to be the same as in 3rd and 5th. Then, the tension when in the neutral section, needs to be the same when deflected all the way to the left and right.

This is a bit of a pain, but if you nail it down, you'll have a really quiet gate and pleasant shifting. Incidentally, pack the rubber housing with grease graphite or standard), this will make sure the gear noise will not travel up the cables when you're doing 6500 rpm+ and enjoying the ride...

Did you check the bevel gear mating with prussian blue after putting in the new bearings? Many times, new bearings have slightly different inner race widths (hence the spacer after the bearing) and just tightening without checking the positioning on the bevel gear sets you up for trouble later (whistling sound instead of whining and notchy at very slow speed as the teeth clash instead of mesh...)

Good luck on this.

Marco

 

Lars:

Wish I could help. You may want to PM Fatbillybob, directly. He is the "master" of the 348 gearbox.

Best...

 

You need to work the linkage from the gearbox side and make sure you can select gears. Select 2nd gear. Then make sure there is no crap in the shifter gate area like pennies etc down there. Then reattach the cables carefully not disturbing second gear position at the box while also putting the shift knob in 2nd. Now you should be able to shift the box but you need to tweek the cable micro adjustments to position the shifter perfectly in the gate positions 1-5.

I have no idea what the problem could be. I guess it is possible to have plenty of slop in the shafts upon dissassembly then trap a shift fork or bell crack and then once the bearing is back in jam the part and disable the box. When I open a box I just rebuild it but many are just replacing bearings. So if you find the problem post it here as a pitfall to side bearing changes. Sometimes these things happen when we don't have full access and we work through a tiny window. When you take the whole box apart you find all kinds of things like chipped teeth, broken springs etc...which is why I take the box apart if I am going to open the case beyond the inspection plate.

If you cannot select gears manually at the box then you need to pull the gearbox out and take the front cover off and look inside to see what is up. The advantage of this is the you can check synchro clearance while you are in there which really should be a minimum thing you do even if all you really want to do is change side bearings. And really you need to check the gear mating when you change bearings too. It sounds like you just put bearings in and you are taking chances with longevity of your box eventhough you may have fixed the short term problem. The process of putting in new side bearings includes final torquing bearings down then checking synchros, check gear mating, check gear shift function then the last thing you do is stake the rings.

I hope you get lucky but if you can't wiggle the shift rod freely you have to take the box back out.

 

Bet its in two gears.

 

Lars,

I was putting my new box back together again, and as I put the main plate back on the box (the one facing the engine), I noticed that with the shifter engaged on the middle actuator and the fork selectors in neutral (tested by turning the clutch shaft and only seeing the differential turning and the mainshaft, but not the layshaft), the little actuators are tricky to align with the shift rod slots AND CAN LOOK ENGAGED while engaging the WRONG pin. It can be that you only have one of the actuators aligned properly and the other two not. This will lock the shifter in a single gear and you would not be able to shift into another.

This means you will have to take the box back off... I made that mistake in the reassembly, but the box is not in a car for now.

Secondly, I noticed that the detent pin in the mainshaft that engaged the gearbox oil pump was broken in my box. As it also had the new bearings BA363151A's, I am assuming that during the reassembly the oil pump slot and the pin in the mainshaft were not aligned, then as the bolts were tightened, the pin broke. I found it inside the mainshaft.

So this could mean that if it is a common reassembly error (and really difficult to spot as the pin is very thin metal and it just barely clears the slot), there could be many cars driving without the gearbox oil pump working at all or at least very poorly - and so only lubricating by splash as opposed to pressure. Check it in yours as it may explain the premature failure of multiple sets of bearings despite the low mileage.

Good luck and let me know about the pin in the layshaft...

 

This post makes me glad that with all the work I performed on my 308 2-valve, 308 QV, 328 and 355 - I have wimped-out when it came to gearbox work (with the exception of drilling a tiny hole between two compartments in my 308 2-valve to improve 1-2 shifting). It's just too complex and frustrating unless you're a real stud like FBB and Marco! Like the old adage goes - a good man knows his limitations.

Hope it works-out for you Lars!

 

Lars, I just tried this with the box I have on the bench. I aligned the middle pin (part 9 and 38), but misaligned the upper (part 27 not engaged with part 18) and lower pin (part 28 not engaged with part 8). With the box reassembled, I can shift into second, then the box jams, eg. cannot go back to neutral or shift. The only way to fix it, is to remove the lid, manually put the engaged gear fork into neutral, then realign the shifter actuators (parts 27,28 and 38) to the shifter rod slots (parts 8,9 and 18), and reassemble.

After this it shifts in all the gears... I hope it is this simple!

Marco
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I believe Marco's correct, if its any consolation this happens all the time with Hewlands, some of us have even done it more than once. (insert embarrassed smiley here)

 

Lars try this.

Remove the ball on the shift lever, then remove the shift gate from the shifter housing, and off of the lever. It's only 2 screws holding the gate in place, and one nut under the shift ball. The reason I say try this is because it could be that your cables are out of alignment? With the shift gate out of the way you will be able to move the shift lever as far to the right or left as needed to get it into gear. But with the shift gate still attached it is preventing you from moving the lever far enough in either direction to get the lever to be able to select a gear. The separators on the gate may be blocking the lever. If it turns out that after you remove the shift gate that you can then select a gear you know that you need to adjust your shift cables. It will take you all of 2 minutes to remove the shift ball and the shift gate, then trying to see if you can then grab a gear. Give that a go and see how that works.

 

One of the shift rods was out of neutral when you put the selector cover back. You will have to remove the cover and manually place all shift rods in the neutral position. Adjacient rods can not be moved at the same time, however non-adjacent rods can so that its possible to manually place the box in two gears at once to lock it for tightening pinion and layshaft nuts.

 

Hmmmmmmm?

So let's get this right. You can not select any gears with the car off, but it feels like it is still in gear. I hate to say this but, you may have a bad synchro/s. Did you check them before you put the gear box back in the car? the reason I say this is, when I rebuilt my box I had two synchros that wore grooves into the synchro cups because of the main shaft moving laterally. Drain your oil then remove the bottom inspection plate and have a look.

I know you are frustrated, trust me I KNOW!

 

When you took it out and moved it around, did you stand or firmly bump the shifter rod on the front of the gearbox? if you did, there is no damage, however in some boxes (the earlier ones), you can push the shifter too far in so it disengages from the forks (I did it on mine), Then if you pull it back out you can get it stuck "between" gears.

If you had 2 gears engaged, you would not be turning wheels in so much of making a hell of a noisy racket out of the box...

If yo have access to an endoscope, you can view the selector mechanism from the inspection panel, if not, the box needs to come out and the front plate taken off... It is 1.5 hours of work, but will tell you exactly what is going on, worthwhile, instead of spending days going through posted hypotheses?

All the best,

Marco