Hi Guys, I recently replaced the engine / gearbox mountings on my vehicle. Before I replacced it, it sometimes, when presswed hard, disengaged 3rd at about 2500 rpm. After I replaced the mountings, out of which the front and transmission was almost completed damaged, the shifting was much smoother - until it suddely started diengaging again - only this time - it was 3rd and 4th gears. I had a look and found that a electrical calble, with a plastic housing surrounding it, somwhow got mixed up in between the two changer levers on top of the transmission box. I removed it and the problems disappeared - or so I thought. We drove this last week-end, about 300km with it, when suddenly, without prior warning, it disengaged 3rd again, when changing gears, to change highways, and go onto a different lane. Fropm thereon, when ever I put it in 3rd, and started to chase the revs, it will disengge - even as low as 1500 rpm. After driving a while, I found that 4 th also strated disengaging again. As we were far from home, and almost at our destination, I drove on. The road took us through mountain passes. In the passes I really struggled as there were no 3rd gear, and when reffed above 2000 rpm, 4th also disengaed with a load bump. We managed to get to our destination and back, but I believe I damaged the gearbox, by doing so.

Now my questions:
Can it be due to a lack of oil change that caused this? I bought this vehicle on 145000 Km, and could not found any proof that the gearbox oil was ever changed. The air filter, and oil were almost completely clogged up with dirt, I replaced the filters and oil, and again I replaced and drained it after 2000Km. I never checked the gearbox oil....
Can I "extend" the life of the transmission bgy replacing the oil in it now with atf+4? Such oils are not available in the general market in SA, and even from the dealers. Can I substitute it with ATF+3?
Will it be safer to just get gearbox specialists to redo the synchros, and hope for the best? I believe that will also cost an arm and a leg.
Regards

 

Some feedback - I drained the atf fluid from the gearbox, a whole 500ml came out of it... Filled her up with atf4 and since then have not disengaged once. There seems to be a leak somewhere, but I will find and fix that...

 

I forgot to mention the following: If someone want to make BIG money - sell parts in SA. I saw on farious sites in UK, mopar atf4 for 22£ for 5 litre - that work out to SA rand of R264. Import taxes costs 14% and postage about 22£ total of R600. In SA we pay, for mopar atf4 R170 per 1 litre. Total of R850. I imported three engine mountings total of R1456 from UK. In SA ONE the front one alone - costs R1450......

 

Hi
Just about to change the main bearing on the lay shaft. has anyone got any idea, why this main ball bearing set would be of a shielded design? would it not be better to be open to the oil of the gearbox for better ware and heat dissipation. this will be the 4th time i have had to change and repair gearbox on the 2.5td when i replaced bearing last time i brought a spare as difficult to source size, wondered if better to remove the standard shield.

 

Recently bought my first 2000 model 2.5 td. I added half a quart (oil level was low) of a fully synthetic 75W-90 manual transmission oil (Biltema Multi Gearoil 36-997) which is specifically designed for use with yellow metals (not aggressive against them). However, the transmission immediately became much harder to shift, so now I will drain it completely and go with all new engine oil as specified above.