R380 rebuild after 5th gear failure

Thanks Rick. I haven't worked on the inside of a gearbox for 25 years...yeah I know shiny pants. I have RAVE. Is there much too it? Cheers

I was driving it this morning and it's so smooth through the gears. Just 5th that vibes. Cheers

Avoid driving in 5th until fixed if possible until it's repaired, the stuffed rear support bearings are letting the 5th gearset come in to mesh too much under load ,which won't end well, you can get your own housing machined to take the Ashcroft bearings.
The hardest part if you're going to only replace those bearings is pulling the oil seal collar ( easy with a hydraulic puller).
If you want to keep the car for the long term you might want to consider doing all bearings and syncro's , clutch etc.
Or if you added cash and a lot of pleading, you could swap it for a TD5 Auto[biggrin]

Haha. Thanks mate. It's the off idle torque of the high compression 4.6 that's stresses 5th...so a Td5 would definately look after 5th gear better... [emoji12]

Actually the turbo diesel will probably stress the 'box more than an atmo V8. The relatively high torque per pot and gap between firings will really hammer it. Nice smooth V8 with overlapping firings is much gentler. Difference between ultimate strength (max engine torque output) and fatigue life (cyclical loading). Turbo diesel drivelines have to be pretty beefy compared with the engine torque rating. Especially as we go towards less cylinders and more boost (Ford Panther and LR Ingenium are both 4cyl and pushing 53+psi and 500Nm). My 4.9 stroker puts out more, but those little diesels would just kill my driveline...

also one of the reasons the TD5's chew auto's more than the V8....

Interesting. Didnt know that. Cheers.