5 speed Nissan box

[drifter]

As mentioned in an earlier thread, I have a 2a with a 253 V8 connected to some sort of 5-speed gear box.

I am assuming it is a Nissan box. Is there any quick way to tell while it is all in the vehicle?

It is connected to a standard LR transfer case.

My other question is, if indeed it is a Nissan box, is there any mechanism you know of that allows for a reversing lamp connection on these boxes?

Thanks in advance.

[navigation2000]

As mentioned in an earlier thread, I have a 2a with a 253 V8 connected to some sort of 5-speed gear box.

I am assuming it is a Nissan box. Is there any quick way to tell while it is all in the vehicle?

It is connected to a standard LR transfer case.

My other question is, if indeed it is a Nissan box, is there any mechanism you know of that allows for a reversing lamp connection on these boxes?

Thanks in advance.

Hi John,

My Nissan box has 2 x black rubber boots on the drivers side of the casing, not sure what the rearmost one is all about yet, but it contains a part of the reverse shifter mechanism, and probably should be left alone.

I found the reverse switch beneath the forward most positioned rubber boot, located roughly in the middle, and toward the top of the box.

I'll try to add an image pointing to its location.

Hope this helps.

[drifter]

Thanks for that, Ross

That first pic is a beaut. I am still actually trying to ascertain whether or not is IS a Nissan box. The only thing I know for a fact is that it is a 5-speed.

I can't get pics from underneath as I just don't have the clearance to get a camera in under there.

Pics from the top show very little. I'll post some. Without taking the flooring and covers off I am pretty much in the dark and I really don't want to start on this one until the other one is finished.

One thing I have managed to do is crawl underneath with a tape measure and get some very rough measurements of the 3 items that make up the gearbox. They are very approximate because there is little room under there for a fat boy and even less when the fat boy is trying to avoid a hot exhaust pipe and wave his arms around with a tape measure in them.

Anyway, the adapter is approximately 3"

The bell housing is roughly 7.5"

The gearbox is about 9.75" in length and, if it's a clue, is painted blue.

This is from the passenger side, looking across the rocker cover to the bell housing and gearbox. Thar rusty looking object middle top is the clutch slave cylinder.

http://kiwi-in-oz.com/pictures/photos/800/1D322397.jpg (http://kiwi-in-oz.com/pictures/photos/2400/1D322397.jpg)

From drivers side, closeup of slave cylinder and what must be an illegal fluid hose! :

http://kiwi-in-oz.com/pictures/photos/800/1D322407.jpg (http://kiwi-in-oz.com/pictures/photos/2400/1D322407.jpg)

Another shot of same:

http://kiwi-in-oz.com/pictures/photos/800/1D322409.jpg (http://kiwi-in-oz.com/pictures/photos/2400/1D322409.jpg)

Back to passenger side view. You can see the end of the fairly shallow bell housing and the top of the gearbox:

http://kiwi-in-oz.com/pictures/photos/800/1D322412.jpg (http://kiwi-in-oz.com/pictures/photos/2400/1D322412.jpg)

Same view, slightly different angle:

http://kiwi-in-oz.com/pictures/photos/800/1D322416.jpg (http://kiwi-in-oz.com/pictures/photos/2400/1D322416.jpg)

[drifter]

Ross,

Above the red arrow in your first pic, there appears to be some sort of identification on the top of the box. Yes?

I looks like I an going to have to remove the floor and tunnel to get to the bottom of this...

[101RRS]

I can't get pics from underneath as I just don't have the clearance to get a camera in under there. That would be right:o

One thing I have managed to do is crawl underneath Yeah rite :o

:wasntme:

[101RRS]

John Boy,

Were you not supposed to be getting your LWB going properly this weekend so you could take it in for rego next week and then have it on the road.:D

[drifter]

Yeah rite :o

:wasntme:

I suspect you would have a similar problem :D


John Boy,

Were you not supposed to be getting your LWB going properly this weekend so you could take it in for rego next week and then have it on the road.:D

Yup

We were going to be getting the engine running properly this weekend but never managed to arrange it.

It's too damned cold to be working out on that driveway, anyway. There is a very cold breeze racing through that chills you to the bone.

[drifter]

Anyway, the adapter is approximately 3"

The bell housing is roughly 7.5"

The gearbox is about 9.75" in length and, if it's a clue, is painted blue.

There is also another section at the rear that bolts on to the transfercase - looks like the one in your picture.



Another crawl underneath *sigh* has shown what looks like a rubber bulb thingy sticking out the side of the box - it may be what I am looking for. It looks very much like the one in your picture.

It also revealed a number on the drivers side of the box - I am assuming it is a serial number. Above it was a symbol. Hard to see under there but it looked like a circle with an H or a W inside the circle.

[drifter]

It looks like an H I think.

Here is a pic from the crappy mobile phone that sorta shows it and shows the black rubber bulb thing:

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/

[navigation2000]

Ross,

Above the red arrow in your first pic, there appears to be some sort of identification on the top of the box. Yes?

I looks like I an going to have to remove the floor and tunnel to get to the bottom of this...

Ok, I snuck back out and took a picture from a similar angle, then compared it to yours.

I've also added pics of the "info" I've previously found on the box itself.

I didn't look for my bell housing number, as it's clearly going to be different to yours, given the different engines, but the rear adaptor should be the same, in that it ties the box to the transfer, and that shouldn't change between either of these "kits", unless the transfer boxes are not Land Rover. (I guess)

I also see differences between the top gear shift plates, but the one part which did catch my eye, is the part I've highlighted with the red arrow, showing a serial number atop the gearbox case, front passenger side, which you may be able to get a peek at from through your bonnet.

The blue colour on the casing strongly suggests "Marks Adaptors", as mine also has remnants of that same colour on the gearbox casing, as you can see in the earlier images of the oil switch area.

[navigation2000]

It looks like an H I think.

Here is a pic from the crappy mobile phone that sorta shows it and shows the black rubber bulb thing:

http://www.kiwi-in-oz.com/images/IMAG0089x.jpg

The black bulb thing is the reverse mechanism I mentioned earlier. Don't touch that.

The other "thing", just behind your 4x4 stick, which may be a bolt, not sure, can't see it too well, THAT'S the reverse switch location.

It may be still there, just covered in grime.

It's supposed to have a rubber boot over it to keep it free of filth...haha.

[drifter]

Fantastic! Especially that last picture. That tells me I have a 5-speed Nissan!

There are many threads on this site re Nissan 5-speed boxes but very few with pictures so this is all gold!

Thanks so much for your help.

I will see if I can find more numbers in the locations you have shown.


Cheers!

[101RRS]

I suspect you would have a similar problem :D


What makes you say that? :D

I am trying to psych myself up to go out an start a belt change on my Freelander but it is tooo cold.

Why don't you clean out your garage and move the LWB into the garage and work on it in there. You are so close to getting it all finished - you know you want to do it.

Garry

[drifter]

The black bulb thing is the reverse mechanism I mentioned earlier. Don't touch that.

The other "thing", just behind your 4x4 stick, which may be a bolt, not sure, can't see it too well, THAT'S the reverse switch location.

It may be still there, just covered in grime.

It's supposed to have a rubber boot over it to keep it free of filth...haha.

Aha!

Cool - I plan to run a pressure washer over it all when I start work on it so all should be revealed!

As for rubber boots.... the ones it has appear to be badly rotted so I am not surprised it has a few missing.

Thanks

[drifter]

What makes you say that? :D

yeah, right... remember, I have met you... :wasntme:


I am trying to psych myself up to go out an start a belt change on my Freelander but it is tooo cold.

Tell me about it. I kept turning the SW around on the driveway so I was in the sun when crawling underneath. Didn't help with the breeze though.


Why don't you clean out your garage and move the LWB into the garage and work on it in there. You are so close to getting it all finished - you know you want to do it.

Garry

That would not be a good political move. If I clean it out for MY CAR and not hers, I will be forced to deal with an upset woman - and I have had enough experience in that department to not deliberately put myself there.

I am going to rebuild the old distributor and go back to that. It is the only one that has actually worked properly in the engine. A brand new one wouldn't even let me start the thing and the electronic one seems to change every time I start the engine. Stupid things!

The plan will be to tune the new carb properly with a known working dissy and THEN swap to a new dissy - with the two of them being new, I cannot tell which I need to adjust to get the correct results.

For a start, I would be happy to have the engine idle without the choke out and smoke coming out the exhaust...

Anyway - that's for the 2a rebuild thread. This is the "identification of the gearbox" thread ;)

[navigation2000]

yeah, right... remember, I have met you... :wasntme:


I am going to rebuild the old distributor and go back to that. It is the only one that has actually worked properly in the engine. A brand new one wouldn't even let me start the thing and the electronic one seems to change every time I start the engine. Stupid things!

The plan will be to tune the new carb properly with a known working dissy and THEN swap to a new dissy - with the two of them being new, I cannot tell which I need to adjust to get the correct results.

For a start, I would be happy to have the engine idle without the choke out and smoke coming out the exhaust...

Anyway - that's for the 2a rebuild thread. This is the "identification of the gearbox" thread ;)

I presume you've addressed the wiring adequately enough to suit the electric (HEI) dizzy?

The standard Land Rover wiring is only rated to handle a points dizzy, and while I'm not sure if they used a "resisted" feed wire in their specs, it doesn't really matter, because that feed wire must be upgraded to cope with HEI anyway, and a relay must also be installed.

It's a simple task to make this wiring modification, but after having done so, you can't revert back to a points dizzy without again rewiring backwards to suit the points. If you run a full 12 volts to the points dizzy, it will very quickly kill the point contacts.

[drifter]

I presume you've addressed the wiring adequately enough to suit the electric (HEI) dizzy?

The standard Land Rover wiring is only rated to handle a points dizzy, and while I'm not sure if they used a "resisted" feed wire in their specs, it doesn't really matter, because that feed wire must be upgraded to cope with HEI anyway, and a relay must also be installed.

It's a simple task to make this wiring modification, but after having done so, you can't revert back to a points dizzy without again rewiring backwards to suit the points. If you run a full 12 volts to the points dizzy, it will very quickly kill the point contacts.

The vehicle was completely rewired.

The electronic dizzy didn't come with any doco - just an extra wire that went back to the hot side of the coil. No mention of a relay requirement.

Back to your pictures... where is the location of that text that clearly shows it is a Marks adaptor? I am assuming it is at the bottom. Which side?

As for the gearbox serial number. I cleaned the oil off that top part of the gearbox under the firewall and, yes, it certainly looks like the place a serial number would go. At the moment, though, there is so much blue paint there I cannot actually distinguish any lettering. I may hit the paint with a wire brush and see what it reveals.

[navigation2000]

The vehicle was completely rewired.

The electronic dizzy didn't come with any doco - just an extra wire that went back to the hot side of the coil. No mention of a relay requirement.

Back to your pictures... where is the location of that text that clearly shows it is a Marks adaptor? I am assuming it is at the bottom. Which side?

As for the gearbox serial number. I cleaned the oil off that top part of the gearbox under the firewall and, yes, it certainly looks like the place a serial number would go. At the moment, though, there is so much blue paint there I cannot actually distinguish any lettering. I may hit the paint with a wire brush and see what it reveals.

I'd have to know what dizzy you have before saying more, but if it's a Bosch HEI, from a Commodore etc, it requires 12 volts to function properly, and your mention of the engine not running "right" at varying times, could it be suggesting that it's reacting to varied stages of battery charge?

A Bosch HEI will run on a low power feed , but it can't run properly as it's effectively being starved.

Let me go back out there and snap a few more pictures.

I'll collect as many as I can find and upload them here.

The "Hall Cell" (Hall Effect sensor/module) is a 12 volt component, so even if the vehicle was rewired, was it rewired with the upgrade to a 12 volt dizzy in mind?

Even those 1 x wire big capped Chev type dizzies require a full 12 volts, and yeah, I know what you mean about no info coming with stuff lik that, for the sellers almost always assume you already know the basics, and thus leave you posted more often than not.

Back soon with pictures...

[drifter]

Cheers for that.

The rewire was on the HT (not the one with the Nissan gearbox) and I was not aware that the -ve side of the coil to the dizzy was a resistive wire - I just ran a 'normal' wire. When I put the electronic dizzy in I ran an extension on the 'new' wire that came with it to the +ve side of the coil.

The battery is not handling things too well - it is old and past its replacement date - doesn't hold a charge too well - but the new alternator is pumping out a steady 12V

Looking forward to new pics.

[navigation2000]

Apologies for the delay in getting back, had some visitors arrive and had to try to resolve an intake manifold problem for them.

Ok, I was distracted whilst under the Land Rover, so not sure if I got them all.

Image # 1 shows a number of some kind, on the gearbox to transfer case adaptor, but it's now damaged due to the breather installation.

Image #2 Same adaptor, located at the junction between the gearbox and transfer, passenger side top, between the 2 "lands", and it appears to be the Marks Adaptors phone number.

Image #3 shows the side of the gearbox, passenger side, with bell housing in view to the left, and shows a PTO pump(?) location, which was open when I got the box, and had to be plated over.

Image #4 is how the gearbox to transfer case adaptor looks when viewed from below, looking forward.

[drifter]

Excellent, thank you. All good - I can now identify my gearbox.

I did find one picture on the internet:

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/

This is a Nissan GQ gearbox set up on a Land Rover transfer case by Marks Adaptors.

[navigation2000]

Excellent, thank you. All good - I can now identify my gearbox.

I did find one picture on the internet:

http://www.ebroadcast.com.au/ecars/Conv/PiCs37/Eng2.jpg

This is a Nissan GQ gearbox set up on a Land Rover transfer case by Marks Adaptors.

Not a problem.

Yes, I saw that image when I was doing my research too, but couldn't yield much from it. That's about the only image on the net too.

I actually had the impression the author of that article was just guessing as to the heritage of the box in that image, as he offered nothing by way of support for his suggestion that it's a GQ Patrol box.

It looks very much like the one I have, bell housing disregarded again, but I'm still under the impression that my gearbox is a Cabstar, or Caball box.

I think the differences are in the input shaft diameters, as well as spline tooth numbers.

To be honest, I'm not going to be able to know until I can get it on the road and tested.

The ratio's of 1st gear are different between each of them too, if I'm not mistaken.

[drifter]

Yeah - I have even looked at the Marks (http://www.aulro.com/afvb/www.marks4wd.com) site and looked at the current range of gearboxes they discuss on there. They have a chart of gear ratios.

*sigh*

I'm sure it will all come out when I start stripping the vehicle down.

It's a pity Nissan didn't put a model mark on the box.

A mate has a couple of 240Z boxes and the only mark on them is on the bell housing. And it is an obscure mark. Nothing anywhere that clearly says NISSAN, let alone the model.

[navigation2000]

Yeah - I have even looked at the Marks (http://www.aulro.com/afvb/www.marks4wd.com) site and looked at the current range of gearboxes they discuss on there. They have a chart of gear ratios.

*sigh*

I'm sure it will all come out when I start stripping the vehicle down.

It's a pity Nissan didn't put a model mark on the box.

A mate has a couple of 240Z boxes and the only mark on them is on the bell housing. And it is an obscure mark. Nothing anywhere that clearly says NISSAN, let alone the model.

Yeah....I did all that, and quite a bit more too. I don't even want to think about how much Internet I burned up, nor the lost sleep.....:eek:

I even had a parts guru mate working on it to help me out, and after 2 days he became almost as frustrated as I was, and he's been a very talented parts man all his working life.

In the end, due to never ending conflicts in parts manuals, and no way to determine what was what, and all the rest, the only safe bet was to load everything into the back of the ute and haul it all over to the other side of town, where we were told of a clutch place that should be able to sort it all out.

Got there, and the man at the counter came out and had a look, and after a few moments, he walked away shaking his head, seemingly defeated, and because he walked away without even a word, we just stood there looking around and waiting to see what happened next...

Then an older chap emerged, like a big old bear, and with the other bloke in tow, proceeded to walk over to the back of the ute with a sort of squint in his eye, so we just stood aside and waited...

Then I explained what the project was, and without him even touching anything, he turned to the other bloke and started rattling off parts numbers, and told him to rip open such and such a kit, and snag a bit out of that, and then grab a bit out of this, and so on.

The other bloke turned to walk away, but stopped and asked what he should do to square up the ledgers, given that he'd now have a swag of incomplete kits opened. The older fellow told him to write "incomplete kit" on all the boxes and return them all to their origins of manufacture. The younger bloke looked alarmed, but turned and walked back inside.

As the older bloke walked off, a bit like John Wayne with bit of a beer gut, he spun around and said, "you want a spigot to suit that too"?

Fwoarrr, in the tenseness of the moment, we'd forgotten all about the spigot!

Ahhhhh, yes please...

He then called after the other bloke and told him to add a (whatever the number was) to the list....and off he went, back into his cave...:p

We were then told to head up the road to the parts warehouse to collect all the bits.

The people there quizzed us as to why they were ripping open kits and taking bits and pieces like this, we just said we needed that combination and left it at that.

The gear was all packed and handed over to us, so we then rocked over to the ute, and ripped open all the boxes and test fitted each part individually to ensure the old bloke hadn't made a blue.

Not that we didn't trust him, to be honest we were both in awe of him.

The parts all matched, so off we went, happy as larks!

Mate, you just have to love those old parts blokes, they're absolutely awesome.

My hat's off to him, that's for sure.

How's this, we asked if they had clutch fork dust boots, slave rods and a few other things, and were told to go to yet another place just up the road, thus we zoomed over there, full of confidence.

Walked in, asked the bloke for this...Narp!....asked for that...Narp!...this? Narp!...Narp!..Narp!....

Walked out of there with mouths agape, stunned by the contrast in professionalism....and I couldn't help commenting that they oughta change the sign outside, which declared them to be the stockers of anything like the stuff we sought...I proposed they change that sign to NARP! in big bold font... :D

[drifter]

Amazing, eh?

When you find a good one you tend to keep going back.

[navigation2000]

Amazing, eh?

When you find a good one you tend to keep going back.

Mate, after all the BS I've been through with this, I don't ever wanna go back there again!

&*$% that!

Nahhh, I'd rather just doff my hat to the old parts man, and thank him for his obvious wealth of knowledge, and thus wish him well for evermore.

This gearbox swap was never meant to happen, seeing as the original box had only done 2060 klm after allegedly being rebuilt ($3000) a few short months prior to failing.

While I enjoy tinkering on the odd occasion, this has gone just a tad past the odd tinker, and for that, I'm not really pleased.

Sure, it "might" turn out to be a good thing, and I'm trying to be positive, but the fact remains, I should never have had to endure this BS, not after paying a so called professional to do the rebuild.

It's just wrong!:mad: