Carrier gearshift binds in first gear

[Big D]

Gidday all

Thanks for the replies.

I did some experimenting again with the aligment of the brass bush mounts and the gearchange rod and ball joint. I think it is about as free as it is ever going to be now. It slides freely back and forth with no apparent binding now.

Lynn - you got me thinking about the gearbox and out of interest I took off the transmission housing gap and shone a torch in there. Sure enough I can see signs of rust on the shifter rods. While I can't see everything in there, looking at the transmission from the rear of the carrier, I can see rust on the most rearward position of the right hand shifter rod. I can also see rust on the driver's end of the centre shifter rod.

I'll have to get my Ford manual out to see which gears they affect but presumably all shifter rods will be affected. I wonder how much rust is too much but presumably this would not help, certainly once the engine heats up.

How straightforward a job is this to remove the top cover? By the looks of things I can just remove all the top cover bolts and lift it straight up. Will I need to move the oil filter?

My other worry is how easy is it to get it back on afterwards? Will the selector forks align themselves without any worries.

Is this what you were getting at John?

Cheers

Darryl

[Big D]

Gidday again,

I went ahead and shifted the oil filter and pulled the transmission top cover.

I've taken a series of photos of it from both underneath and on top taken through the top where the housing cap goes. Notice that on some of the photos the flash has given the impression of reddening of the areas affected by corrosion. In normal light, these don't seem as bad as the photos would have me believe.

However, looking at the corrision, there does seem to be some obvious very red rusty areas on the shifter rods as seen through the hole in the top cover. The corrosion on the underside of the shifter rods appears very dark and older although I am certainly no expert with this sort of stuff.

Overall, the corrosion appears no worse than that in the gearbox on my 1943 Willys. However at the same time this gearbox and engine was completely reconditioned around 2005 and the carrier would have only done 100 miles at the very most since then.

It looks to me like I'll have to pull all the shifter rods and clean them all up. I guess all this would only add to the binding when coming out of gear.

I would be keen to see what you experts think.

Thanks.

Cheers

Darryl

[Scrivo18]

Hi

Thats the drama my carrier had, one of the rods actually started to come out of the top plate, very difficult to shift gear, espially in front of a fire front, I had to give it a very smart kick!!

Tim

[Lynn Eades]

Pull it to bits, and clean it up. Then you can hopefully eliminate it as the problem.
When someone recons one of these boxes, it may mean nothing happened to the top of the box.
As you can see, there are three holes in line with the three selector shafts. Above each shaft is a ball brg. followed by a spring. On the opposite plane are two pellets between the three shafts. these are interlocks, which in conjuction with a floating pin in the center shaft, prevent you from selecting two gears at once.
At one end there are core plugs (or frost, or welch) which can hold a fair bit of gunge.
Its worth the effort to go through it. Pull it to bits slowly, taking careful note of how it all fits together (your photos will help a lot.
The shaft with no fork is for reverse. The one at the front of the box is for third and top gear, and the other one selects first and second. If you have any problems, I can walk you through it.
There are other areas that can cause your trouble too, as George said. If your clutch is dragging it makes selecting a gear harder to do. If this is the problem, it will be noticeably different when the engine is running, and not running.
Any questions, Just ask. It may help someone else.

[Ron Pier]

All this talk of gearshift selection problems got me worried about my own carrier, as I haven't put it in gear for some time. I did overhaul my box myself about 12-13 years ago.As Lynn mentioned, I didn't touch the top cover though. Anyway I just braved my way through 1" of snow in my carpet slippers to the shed.(Life is tough here you Canadians!) Anyway fired up the carrier and she slips nicely into all 5 gears. ( phew!) Ron

[Blackpowder44 (RIP)]

When you come to put the this assembly back on I would advise you to have someone to help you. My friend lay on his side alongside the engine on the drivers side and tried to see that the two shifter forks lined up and I was on the other side to align the reverse rod.As I said we found it a pig of a job as you couldnt see exactly what was going on. It took us about 6 tries before we got it right. For the first 5 tries everything seemed o.k. but when we tried to engage a gear it was still lockes up due to non alignment. My advice, find a friend who is mechanically minded and a good supply of cigs and tea. All the best, John.

[Big D]

Gidday again

I stripped down the top of the gearbox tonight. I took a series of photos as I went. Damn handy these digital cameras.

The shifter rods certainly have some corrosion on them. The bores in the gearbox top seem pretty good though.

What's the best way to clean the rods up? Just a bit of emery paper and some elbow grease?

Cheers

Darryl