help please, snapped gear stick!

[marcello]

the other day whilst driving our little series 2a, the gear stick snapped off whilst trying to change form 3rd to 4th.

3rd gear has always been a little difficult to change out of but, the lever needs a good yank to change,

my question is, what would cause this? is a sticky gearchange heard of in these cars. what should i be looking for? any help would be great as i can weld the stick back together but would like to fix the problem for good.

[JDNSW]

Snapped gearlevers in Series (and even later) Landrovers are commonplace - I have three Series 2/2a gearboxes here - all have welded gear levers! (I see Four Wheel Drives list new ones at $71.50, others presumably about the same)

However, gears should not be hard to change. The most likely reason is the ball is stiff to move under load. Since you have to remove it to weld or replace it, I would be inclined to remove the whole assembly, strip the ball setup, and reassemble it with a generous amount of graphite (lubricates but does not attract dust), ensuring that it moves freely. It may be necessary to replace the peg that stops the lever turning, and make sure it is not causing the binding, which it may do if it is an old bolt not the genuine part (or a copy). Last one I did, I had to drill out the hole, tap it oversize, and make a threaded bush to hold the peg (suitable bolt cut off drilled and tapped, held in the enlarged and threaded hole with studlock).

It is possible that the difficult shifting is a dragging clutch, although this is unlikely as it would show up first on the unsynchronised gears, and is also possible that it is something internal, although this is unlikely, assuming the box has oil in it.

Hope this helps,

John

[VladTepes]

Same thing happened to another bloke on this forum (who's username escapes me) when we were out for a weekend drive. Luckily he had a spare one at home and some firendly rellies to collect it and drive it up to him !

[Shonky]

I've never had it happen to me, but like John, of the 4 gearboxes I have (3 of which are in vehicles) 3 have welded levers - Ambrose is the only one intact but at 28,000 miles he has hardly had a chance to be broken!

I'll probably keep a spare in Gus when I go bush. Along with spare halfshafts. And Spare sealed beams. and spare diffs. and spare... okay maybe not. :angel:

[jx2mad]

I did the same in our fire brigade landrover 2a a few years ago. I tapped it through the gate for reverse and the lever just kept on going. Luckily it was in the shed and not at a fire. Rang up control and they sent a new one down which I swapped over. The old one wasn't holding by much. Looked like it had a crack almost right across it until I finished it off. Jim

[long stroke]

Yep we did the same about a month ago in the county, the g'box was stiff before we re-built it , thats when the main damage was done, just welded it up and she's all good again:cool:

TIM.

[HBWC]

I've never had it happen to me, but like John, of the 4 gearboxes I have (3 of which are in vehicles) 3 have welded levers - Ambrose is the only one intact but at 28,000 miles he has hardly had a chance to be broken!

I'll probably keep a spare in Gus when I go bush. Along with spare halfshafts. And Spare sealed beams. and spare diffs. and spare... okay maybe not. :angel:

is that why you bourght the workshop

[korg20000bc]

Da da da dummm.
METAL FATIGUE!

[Shonky]

is that why you bourght the workshop

I think I got the wrong one Jono!

I should have bought:

c6043Z - Broken Gear Lever Repair Shop, Truck mounted, 3/4 ton, GS, Garage

:D

[marcello]

well it seems i have found the cause of the sticky third gear.

i had to take the top off the transmission to figure it out but to my surprise, some one before me had put 2 steel balls infront of the selector spring, making it very difficult for the spring to compress as it was already under considerable load.

prehaps others who have snapped a stick may have a similar thing happening inside their transmission??

[Lotz-A-Landies]

I've never had it happen to me, but like John, of the 4 gearboxes I have (3 of which are in vehicles) 3 have welded levers - Ambrose is the only one intact but at 28,000 miles he has hardly had a chance to be broken!Broken series gear-sticks is very common. I can remember a number of trips with the LROC in the 1970's early 1980's where it happened, to the extent that quite a few members carried a spare. The last time it happened on a trip where I was present was at the LROCV "The Gathering" at Lockie's place in Mokinya, 2006 I think it was.

More than that the vehicle doesn't have to have a lot of miles on it, the Army report of the Holden engine trials conducted in 1952 lists a broken gear lever as one of the break-downs. The RAEME repair was quite interesting/unusual where they drilled and tapped the gear lever back together.

Diana