I previously posted regarding a gearbox failure on my 1.6 sport (54) which suffered from the seemingly common fault of the diff pin failing and ruining the diff casing. As a result i stripped the gearbox down had it completely restored including a replacement diff and diff casing.

Fortunately this hasn't happened again... but i have an issue with my gearbox again. I have been using the car for a few months now with no issues at all, but just this evening i was changing from 4th to 5th then lost drive and the selector was stuck in 5th and it wasn't easily coming out. After pulling over i pulled it out of 5th, tried the other gears (1-4 and reverse all work fine) but when putting it 5th, the gearstick feels very light and soft slotting into the 5th gate and the same problem, no drive and very hard to pull out of 5th.

I'm assuming this is a gear linkage problem? I'm not sure whether i need a new linkage, whether it needs adjustment or something more serious. It is probably an issue which has arisen from having the gearbox rebuilt since i couldn't find this fault on this forum anywhere. It seems a common fault on the corsa since the gearbox linkage is made from plastic and wears out.

If its not raining i'll probably get her up on the ramps tomorrow, go through the annoying task of taking off the wheel arch lining and bumper and investigate further.

Any help or clues to this problem would be greatly appreciated

as your getting the other gears in the gate i would first look at the actual gear stick, remove the gator around the gear stick and check for any debris like a pen lid or even grit, it should be pretty clean in there but the gators do have a habit of splitting this could allow something in.
hopefully that will solve the problem before you start pulling the car to pieces.
on a side note, i had a real pain driving home from work the other night - i was crunching the gears 1 - 3 - 5, they felt hard and would go in, after the drive from hell in the dark i realised i had my phone charger plug in the gator stopping the gears from selecting, but knowing you you would have checked for that first.
good luck mate i hope its a simple one.
roy

Unfortunately no it is nothing that simple
Gears 1-4 and reverse all select ok and have drive, gear 5 just 'falls' into the gate, very very easy to just slot into the gate, and no drive. Sometimes i can pull it out of 5th easily and other times it gets stuck and needs unusual amounts of force.

The gear linkage moves ok for all gears but doesn't select 5th at all, you can feel the other gears selecting but not 5th. It is probably an internal gearbox problem. I'll continue to search the forum and see what comes up.

Thanks again

Does anyone have schematics of the gearbox? eper doesn't seem to work on my computer.

Austin09 said:

Does anyone have schematics of the gearbox? eper doesn't seem to work on my computer.

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http://eper.fiatforum.com/eper/navi...INT_MODE=0&EPER_CAT=SP&GUI_LANG=3&WINDOW_ID=1

Sorry but i'm in need of more help. Car has been sat on the driveway for a week again now. I can't take the top of the gearbox off without dropping it down enough to clear the gbox mount. I will efffectively have to take the gearbox off AGAIN which is a massive job.

My gbox went before and i had it refurb'd by a specialist and within 400 miles its now not selecting 5th. He said we didn't put enough oil in hence it wore. Just checked yday its filled to the brim with oil, so i'm looking at an unknown gbox problem, maybe replacement of selectors?

I was wondering if anyone that has had their gbox off or apart has any photos lying around they could upload to the post? Mine was dismantled and photographed before it was taken to the specialist but i can't seem to find the photos at the moment.

If i can figure out what is the problem i may get a second hand unit and waste more money or it could be a simple cheap fix such as adjustment.

Austin09 said:

Sorry but i'm in need of more help. Car has been sat on the driveway for a week again now. I can't take the top of the gearbox off without dropping it down enough to clear the gbox mount. I will efffectively have to take the gearbox off AGAIN which is a massive job.

My gbox went before and i had it refurb'd by a specialist and within 400 miles its now not selecting 5th. He said we didn't put enough oil in hence it wore. Just checked yday its filled to the brim with oil, so i'm looking at an unknown gbox problem, maybe replacement of selectors?

I was wondering if anyone that has had their gbox off or apart has any photos lying around they could upload to the post? Mine was dismantled and photographed before it was taken to the specialist but i can't seem to find the photos at the moment.

If i can figure out what is the problem i may get a second hand unit and waste more money or it could be a simple cheap fix such as adjustment.

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Just a thought, when I replaced the gearbox on my 1.6 amung the pany of parts that had to be removed were the selector cables, one for reverse and the other for the other gears. I found that near the back of the gear box where the cables attach there are some little plastic adjustor's that you can use to adjust the cables, when adjusted fully one way (extended) I had exactly the same symptoms but when the adjuster was adjusted so the cable was at its shortest I could select all gears however sometimes there is a slight resistance in the higher gears, when time permits I'm going to replace the selector cable as it appears it has stretched slightly.

PhilipB said:

Just a thought, when I replaced the gearbox on my 1.6 amung the pany of parts that had to be removed were the selector cables, one for reverse and the other for the other gears. I found that near the back of the gear box where the cables attach there are some little plastic adjustor's that you can use to adjust the cables, when adjusted fully one way (extended) I had exactly the same symptoms but when the adjuster was adjusted so the cable was at its shortest I could select all gears however sometimes there is a slight resistance in the higher gears, when time permits I'm going to replace the selector cable as it appears it has stretched slightly.

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Was you're issue that the gears were cruncing or you couldn't get it in the 5th gate? Or my problem where the gear goes in the gate too easily and doesn't select the gear. I've disconnected the selector from the gearstick and tried putting in 5th manually and nothing. It must be an issue when the gearbox was refurb'd, which means taking it apart i suppose.

I'll try moving the selector again manually to rule out an adjustment issue like you had. Fingers crossed thats the issue but having already selected 5th manually i don't have my hopes up.

Austin09 said:

Was you're issue that the gears were cruncing or you couldn't get it in the 5th gate? Or my problem where the gear goes in the gate too easily and doesn't select the gear. I've disconnected the selector from the gearstick and tried putting in 5th manually and nothing. It must be an issue when the gearbox was refurb'd, which means taking it apart i suppose.

I'll try moving the selector again manually to rule out an adjustment issue like you had. Fingers crossed thats the issue but having already selected 5th manually i don't have my hopes up.

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On my original gear box I had the problem of gears crunching, I too had problems with the dreaded diff pin, as I needed the car for my holiday I bought a fiat reconditioned gear box, after replacing the gearbox I had the same occasional crunching of the gears and that when I started playing with the adjuster. I did not adjust anything in the car just the adjuster on the cable within the engine bay. As previously stated whilst playing with the adjuster I managed to stop the higher gears from engaging by slackening the adjuster, tightening the adjuster restored the original occasional problem.

Thanks. The 1.6 gearbox's are terrible aren't they!! It isn't a problem with the selector cable i'm sure because i tried selecting gears using my hand on top of the box. Still the same issue. Either one of the selector gears is worn or something came loose inside the box and its out of alignment. I'll take it apart this weekend and see what i can see.

Was your replacement gearbox from the same year? Do you know if all mk1 stilo 1.6 gearbox's are the same?

Austin09 said:

Thanks. The 1.6 gearbox's are terrible aren't they!! It isn't a problem with the selector cable i'm sure because i tried selecting gears using my hand on top of the box. Still the same issue. Either one of the selector gears is worn or something came loose inside the box and its out of alignment. I'll take it apart this weekend and see what i can see.

Was your replacement gearbox from the same year? Do you know if all mk1 stilo 1.6 gearbox's are the same?

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The replacement gear box was ordered from Fiat using the part number that came up on eper for my chassis number, it was not the original part number the part had be 'modified' and a replaced part number issued.

There was a slight problem with it arrived, as even though the part ordered was the one fiat was showing for my car, there had been a mix up, the ame gearbox is used on a car with a mechanical speedo cable, the garage contacted fiat who confirmed the ordered part number was the one for my car appologised and said they'd sent another gearbox the next week, the garage explained the car was needed to go on holiday in that week, they aggreed to let the garage remove the plug from my old gear box and install it on the replacment gear box.

The reconditioned gear box was not cheap but seeing the damage to the old gearbox and all the metal filings I decided that I did not want to risk refrubing my faulty gear box and for reliability I chose the fiat reconditioned box.