Gear Stick Issues - Not selecting reverse or 2nd or 4th.....

BusBoyT2

BusBoyT2

Member
Yesterday our 2001 A2 1.4tdi 125,481 miles on the clock decided randomly to stop allowing us to put the car into reverse or 2nd or 4th! it's as if the "gate" has slipped so that any gear towards the rear of the car or reverse is a no go.

I cant fathom if it's a box or selector issue. Car drives fine if you are happy to use the remaining two gears......difficult for parking thought... :)

Any advice would be gratefully received.

Thanks,

Patrick

P.S anyone know of a good A2 specialist in Essex? pref near Southend.
 

Attachments

  • a2 gear 2.mov
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Take off the bonnet and determine whether you are able to rotate the counterweight on top of the gearbox axially and have free movement vertically. If everything is o.k in the box you should be able to select all 6 gears by movement of the counterweight. If needs be, detach the selection cables, although if these are fine you should be able to do the above with them attached. If everything is moving freely at the box end then it points at the issue being higher up the control mechanism.

Not being able to move the gearlever to select reverse and second and fourth is a bit of a conundrum as it suggests something either going on with the cables or the gearlever end where you have to be able to depress the lever to be able to move it into the plane of reverse gear.

2nd and 4th are accessed by pulling the gearlever back which in turn rotates the gear selector shaft around its own axis, so is there something preventing the cable from moving in that direction - be it a fray or a delamination of the bowden cable outer?

When my project car's gearbox died, it left me with reverse, 1st and 2nd, but then movement further into the box going across the planes was impossible whether using the gearlever or the selector - I suspect something had broken inside the top of the box, but luckily as I had a spare GPK gearbox and a good local mechanic I was able to get it switched out within a few days.

See the dieselgeek videos on Youtube if you don't have an image of how the gearlever cables and bell cranks operate to convert gearlever movement into gear selector actions.

Fingers crossed it doesn't turn out to be too taxing.
 
Robin_Cox said:
Take off the bonnet and determine whether you are able to rotate the counterweight on top of the gearbox axially and have free movement vertically. If everything is o.k in the box you should be able to select all 6 gears by movement of the counterweight. If needs be, detach the selection cables, although if these are fine you should be able to do the above with them attached. If everything is moving freely at the box end then it points at the issue being higher up the control mechanism.

Not being able to move the gearlever to select reverse and second and fourth is a bit of a conundrum as it suggests something either going on with the cables or the gearlever end where you have to be able to depress the lever to be able to move it into the plane of reverse gear.

2nd and 4th are accessed by pulling the gearlever back which in turn rotates the gear selector shaft around its own axis, so is there something preventing the cable from moving in that direction - be it a fray or a delamination of the bowden cable outer?

When my project car's gearbox died, it left me with reverse, 1st and 2nd, but then movement further into the box going across the planes was impossible whether using the gearlever or the selector - I suspect something had broken inside the top of the box, but luckily as I had a spare GPK gearbox and a good local mechanic I was able to get it switched out within a few days.

See the dieselgeek videos on Youtube if you don't have an image of how the gearlever cables and bell cranks operate to convert gearlever movement into gear selector actions.

Fingers crossed it doesn't turn out to be too taxing.
Click to expand...
many thanks! much appreciated. I will be heading out to the garage after work.
 
BusBoyT2 said:
many thanks! much appreciated. I will be heading out to the garage after work.
Click to expand...
Something else that helps is if you have someone in the car able to move the gearlever to positions you ask them to while you watch what is happening on top of the gearbox - my then 9 year old daughter thought it was great fun "Driving the car"!
 
Thanks for all the help. Turns out the culprit is a broken "fork" in one of the cable ends. Going to replace both ball joint cable end thingy's just in case the other one fails soon. See loads of pattern parts on the net. Anyone any experience with ordering these bits?
 
I've used Topran ones if that's any help - have been fine so far and readily available - nice positive click of the lockring when compressed against the spring to release.

Also got a replacement plastic slider as the original in my case was pretty worn looking - a 1J (Mk4 Golf) part number from memory. Whether this reduced play at all is probably open to psychosomatic interpretation but it seemed sensible to do.

p/n - 1J0711550
 
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