Thread: PUMA Gear Box

My experience of 1st to 2nd change is that when the box is cold, I double de-clutch and do so slowly - no grind, smooth and sweet. Once the oil has warmed up - slow changing, finding neutral on the way through, and it's all good too.

The box in my Td5 is the same. As well as changing slowly, a momentary pause in neutral before continuing to second should help. Slow and steady.....a sportscar it's not.

I mostly take off in 2nd if I can. The only time I use 1st is on an upslope. I don't find my gearbox clunky, unless the gear change is too fast. Slow and deliberate, it suits the character of the vehicle.

Naks, are you sure that wasn't a typo? If I drive in 6th at anything below about 80km/h it feels as though I'm about to stall. Changing up into 6th is only done at about 100km/h.

No diesel Defender has ever like going too slow in too high a gear...

I've seen people do a lot of damage changing down too late or stalling in a high gear. In fact one of the work Prados snapped his 6th gear clean off when a chap more used to an automatic was too slow with the clutch when stopping.

If you do that regularly it might actually be a contributing factor to the problems you seem to have lately.

Originally Posted by robharvey

Naks, are you sure that wasn't a typo? If I drive in 6th at anything below about 80km/h it feels as though I'm about to stall. Changing up into 6th is only done at about 100km/h.

Relax guys, I don't normally shift to 6th until I'm doing 100+kmh!

No, I was testing the new gearbox: at various speeds (40kmh, 60kmh, 80kmh, 100kmh), I put the clutch in and shifted between all the gears. Everything is smooth except for 5th-6th below 60kmh. When changing at speed (100-120kmh), there is no grinding, so it's probably due to the low speed.

Originally Posted by numpty

The box in my Td5 is the same. As well as changing slowly, a momentary pause in neutral before continuing to second should help. Slow and steady.....a sportscar it's not.

Weird, in my Td5 I could trash the gear changes and it was super smooth compared to the Puma!

to put it in perspective...

its a slow change gearbox, dont race it it wont like you for it and you will burn up the second gear syncro rings and that will get exxy fast.

if your used to driving a series box or a loosened up r380 forget trying to shift that fast. you need about 2/3rds the effort on the shifter for about half a second longer to get the box to shift well. It gets better when its warmed up and the higher gears are easier as well. my advise is to learn to read the traffic and avoid needing to downchange lower than second if you can.

Thanks for all the feedback. Looks like slow and easy is the go - at least I know its normal behaviour.

When I first picked it up from the dealer (a Pom - knew his LRs), he said this is how you drive it: Nice and easy in 1st, floor it it 2nd and 3rd.

I normally drive from 2000 to 3000 rpm - gear change at 3000, cruise at 2000.

Thanks

Dave G

Originally Posted by numpty

The box in my Td5 is the same. As well as changing slowly, a momentary pause in neutral before continuing to second should help. Slow and steady.....a sportscar it's not.

Isn't it funny, I always ripped the 1>2 change through as quick as I could in the R380, particularly dead cold when Syntrans was my fluid of choice as it always went through like a hot knife through butter (no resistance whatsoever) otherwise it could baulk.

Now I use Motul Gear 300 the change 1>2 is a little slower, possibly as the 'box nears 300,000km too, but the 2>3 change is much better as occasionally Syntrans would allow you to beat the synchro's and the 'dogs would crash a little on engagement.
This would happen even more frequently in low range, which doesn't happen at all anymore.