Hi, is there someone who has a good idea where to start looking how to fix my gearbox (linkage) failiure? A couple of days ago I accelerated hard in first gear then change quickly into secound and totally lost drive. I rolled the car into a gasstation and jacked it up to look for somthing obvious but could not find anything (it was a quick look)... I totally lost 2nd and 3rd gear, there is no resistanse in the linkage in these gears and I clearly feel somthing wrong. However I can get it into 1st and reverse so I drove slowly to listen to missounds in the gearbox but could not hear anything that sounds wrong (which feels like good news) because if there should have been a broken gear in the gearbox I imagine that should have been heard regardless of wich gear I was in (even in neutral)?! After doing so I slowly drove it 20 kilometers home in 1st gear with no problems at all (other than having to drive i first gear only). The shifter feels a bit "off center" and does not run smoothly in the shifter gator therfore I did not shift during the drive home but before starting it up I tried to shift throu the gears and it clearly jammed in the gator... Good ideas are highly appriciated. Regards Johan, Sweden
Begin disassembly until you find something wrong. Start with the linkage at the gearbox, then the clutch, then remove trans. Keep going til you find something wrong.
There are several posters on here with extensive experience with the 348 gear boxes. They will jump in soon. My guess tells me your gear shift rod and/or selectors are out of alignment. You check this with the car on the lift, a friend doing the shifting and a mechanic underneath observing the rod's movement.
You kinda answered your own question. Have a look at the shifter from the top and underneath as well as the cables and linkage. There is not much going on under there and you will quickly know if that is your issue.
Like Plugzit said, start at the box by the transmission where the shift cables attach. It's easy to access. Have someone wiggle the shift lever and watch. I'm wondering if a shift cable broke, or if you're really lucky, one of the bolts holding the cable end to the plate came undone.
Let me clarify my above statement. When you get the cover off the box beside the transmission, you will see the two shift cables hopefully attached to a little plate. When the person in the passenger compartment moves the lever laterally along the shift gate, that should translate into one of the shift cables by the transmission moving forward and the other one moving backwards. That means the plate that the cables attached to will just be rotating on its bolt rather than the whole mechanism moving forward or rearward. If it is not rotating on that bolt either one of the shift cables is broken, or there's a problem with the linkage at the bottom of the shift lever. If it does rotate properly then have your assistant pull the lever back or push it forward. That entire unit back by the tranny should slide forwards or backwards. If all that works, then it's probably in the transmission.
Thanks for all posts! When I rolled the car into the gas station I did the quick check you mentioned with my friend moving the shifter and I lay under the car looking at the plate where the shiftercables connects to the gearbox hoping it was a quick simple quick fix. It looked then like the cables was OK but the shifter jammed... 2 days ago I had the car on a carlift to investigate further and disconnected the shifter cables at the plate and moved the shifter again, the cables are OK so I am afraid the problem may be in the gearbox. What is the easiest way to have a look inside the gearbox? Is it possible to access some of the internals without removing the gearbox just to inspect what may be at fault?
Sorry to hear about your problem. You should send fchat member "fatbillybob" a private email; he has rebuilt the 348 gearbox a few times. Additionally, you could search his posts. Good luck.
Disconnecting the cables and verifying they work checked only the shifter and cables. They still need to be correctly adjusted. Did you check for that? Can you, without the cables connected, shift the transmission at the shift levers and get it into gear? The only reason I suggest this is because I always make sure to comprehensively do the easy stuff first. To answer your question, there are 2 side covers that can be removed and one in the rear underneath/behind the clutch/flywheel. I'm not sure how much can be ascertained through these spots but I know the ring nuts, that often loosen, are there and can be checked.
As Bosshog8 pointed out, with the cables disconnected, you should be able with not a lot of effort to rotate that plate the cables attached to back and forth. You can see that flips a lever -like thing back and forth. If that works, the next check would be to move that metal block fore and aft, but that takes more power. You'll have to gently pry it. If one or both of those don't work, then it would definitely be a gearbox issue. I presume you checked your transmission oil level. if you want to get to the access port behind the clutch/flywheel he talks about above to check the ring nut, and you haven't dug around back there yourself, there's some info about half way through this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVmpOHpsVLM
Here's a video of the translator on my working gearbox as it goes through all the gears. Hope it helps in some way! BTW All this wasn't accompanied by a big dump of hydraulic fluid out the bottom of the pumpkin by any chance? (indicating a busted slave cylinder bearing housing) http://vid68.photobucket.com/albums/i2/jeffreyduckworth/VIDEO0018_zps7192569c.mp4
Thanks again for your posts! I have not had time to do anything more yet but will update when I do. The shifter video was great, thanks a lot for that! Does someone have any good pictures of a disassembled gearbox or even better guide how to rebuild it?
