Thread: The perfect gear change - '93 S1 Disco LT77

I've now done about 1500km in my new (to me) Disco over the last month, and it has taken me a suprisingly long time to ge tthe hang of everything.

One of the main things that was eating me was the fact that I just couldn't get smooth gear changes happening. I have always thought of myself as being mechanically "sympathetic" when operating machinery of any sort, but little part of me suffers when upon selecting a gear and guessing as closely what the pickup revs need to be, the whole driveline goes "clunk/BANG" as the slack is taken up. I learned to drive in a FJ40 with rooted synchros and my first car was a Fiat 124 with a gearbox that nobody else could drive smoothly, so this persistent internal anguish has been hard to bear! (OK I'm being theatrical now...)

BUT I THINK I NAILED IT THIS WEEKEND!

All weekend I have been hauling trailer loads of stuff helping my Ma move out to the boonies, and was experimenting with various ideas to get to the bottom of this. One thing I tried yesterday when everything was cold was to only depress the clutch about 1/3 of its travel when changing out of first instead of double clutching which has been my prefered method while the car warms. I matched the revs for second as per normal double clutch and was "feeling" for any grindy synchro problems (this box does crack it when cold) and before I knew it the car was pulling second with no lash, and a buttery smooth feel through the lever. It suprised the hell out of me so I tried the same thing for third. It went straight in without releasing load on the driveline for more than a fraction of a second. It worked like this all weekend without a hitch whether the box was cold or hot, so I think I've finally found the point where the clutch only just lets go, which makes it easier to feel when road speed and revs are just right. I tried it because I do exactly the same thing on a motorcycle. Even though bike boxes are sequential and built for clutchless changing I have never liked torturing them. I use the slightest dab of clutch to lift the load and everything is gravy to the point that the bike feels like an auto. The Disco will never be that smooth, but as a test I did an aggressive run from 1st through 5th in Low ratio to test it and it was surprisingly free of clunks or freeplay. Previously Low had felt so jerky that I wondered how the vehicle made it to 200,00km intact.

The strangest thing is that my Girlies manual VS Commodore HATES to be driven that way with it's very tight gearchange and rigid driveline, but thinking back I did exactly the same thing with my quirky, half shagged Fiat box, although I'd adjusted the clutch very close down to the floor to make the critical point easier to judge. Even though the 124 box was infamous for losing gears (strangely 1st, 2nd and 4th!) it took 2 years of teenage fury and stupidly hard driving without a hitch.

S, if you've made it to the end of yet another of my verbose posts, I'd be interested in knowing what works for you. Anyone do the same thing? The one thing I have come to realise is that what people say about Rover drivelines is true - they all have lash and it's just a matter of technique.

Do we in fact have the dreaded gearbox mainshaft wear problem and on each gear change you are picking up the slack in the transfer case - I to have the problem and I also minimise the problem by being more cautious when changing gears.

Could also be a combination of all of the above as well as the slack in the driveshaft splines and diffs.

Gazz