General Fiat Multipla JTD unable to gear change

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General Fiat Multipla JTD unable to gear change

MarkX

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Hello,


I'm a baby, 2 month old -me not the car- Fiat Multipla owner. The Multipla is an 01 plate, JTD. I found the Fiat Forum while looking up some problems I've had, and thought I'd introduce myself and share my experience with you so far.


The other problems are minor, but I've had what other people have shared on the site -difficult, then eventually impossible to change gear, unless I switch off the engine, select 2nd and drive round in that.


Went for the cheap option first -bleed the slave cylinder. Took about 10 mins to do with a Sealey Automatic Brake and Clutch Bleeder model VS0205, £16 at the local motor factor. However, the bleep bleep battery tray took about 4 hours to get off and back on again! I hope there is a particular kind of hell out there for the bleep bleep designer who designed this convoluted, over-engineered piece of bleep! What bleep-head thought of putting support stays and accompanying bolts in such inaccessible positions... (I hope the moderator appreciates me putting in my own bleeps saving him/her a job). The bleed kit -not bleep kit, there's a difference -worked great by the way.


Result: Immediately better, and 2 days later gear changing completely normal, well almost. It's certainly much better. Give it another week.


Thoughts on the Sealey kit:


-Good, clear instructions.


-The cap pre-fitted to the device fitted the common brake/clutch reservoir. Attached tube might need tightening to prevent air leak.


-Probably had the pressure too high in the spare tyre connected to the device, used just over 20psi, think 15psi would have been enough, book says will work with 10. Thus wasted some brake fluid.


-Slave cylinder bleed: 1. Attach bleed kit to clutch/brake reservoir as instructed. 2. Remove rubber cap off slave cylinder bleed-nipple. 3. Attach the kit-supplied drain tube (plus waste fluid container -beer can!) to the bleed-nipple. 4. Prize up the clip on the slave cylinder with a small flat-bladed screwdriver -easy, no effort required. 5. Pull/prize out -using a large flat-bladed screwdriver -the end stop/thingy on the slave cylinder which is held in by the clip, allowing the cylinder to be bled. 6. Release the valve on the Sealey kit to bleed. 7. Reverse steps 1 to 7 to finish.


-First time I've used the Auto Sealey kit. A lot less hassle and more effective? than the manual pedal-pumping method, and cheap too.


Thoughts on battery tray removal:


-I thought I was lucky to get it out as the 2 most difficult to access bolts were quite rusted/worn/rounded and very difficult to see and access. Needed just the right length of extension on my socket wrench (ooh er missus). Trick I used with the last bolt near-side, bottom, furthest away from front, was to remove all the other bolts, then rock the tray back and forth to free up the remaining bolt/stay. It worked.


-I replaced the above bolts with the ones in the best condition to make things easier next time -if there is a next time!


-There are photos somewhere of the tray and all the bolt positions.


-Remove the fuse box which bolts to the battery tray first, and attach last.



Thoughts on the Multipla after 2 months:


-Really like it. Wouldn't normally have picked one in a million years, always driven super-minis, but it was available and cheap -well under a thou. Nice ride and handling, loads of seats or storage space -take your pick, and there are more gadgets than you can shake a stick at. Bit like driving a van but better, with much better visibility. Feels like a solid piece of kit, and you get a lot for your money secondhand. MPG 38-40. Have seen 42. Looks a bit weird but doesn't bother me now. Have noticed that other MPVs park next to it at the supermarket, which I suspect is some kind of mating or bonding behaviour...
 
Thanks BikeDoc and widemouthfrog. A week after bleeding the slave cylinder I had trouble again Today changing gear. Got better as the day went on. I'll try the fix in the Gear issues... link below. Looks good.
 
i've found on the multipla and come to think of it other cars of similar age and mileage, that replacing the crap clutch master cylinder for a new one and bleeding back up solves the problem.

the master cylinder that my multipla had was made of plastic :eek: of all things.
i replaced it (which was a metal one) and the problem disappeared.

i love mine too but i'm going to sell it as i really need a 16v tipo (notice the need there, i need one so badly lol)
 
I knew the Slave Cylinder (the one on the Gearbox) is Plastic, but not the Master!
Mind you, there's not a lot of pressure involved with the Clutch (unlike the Brake system), so Plastic isn't a bad choice.
It'll never corrode for one thing.
 
Last edited:
Hello Folks, update on my gear changing problem... Well a week after bleeding the clutch slave cylinder, two days ago the gear changing was worse than ever, impossible without switching the engine off. I read elsewhere that lubricating the clutch lever pivot can help, so I bought some Halfords spray grease (£3-99) and liberally sprayed around the pivot and the clutch pedal pivot points. Followed advice to spray 6 times, every 10 mins for an hour, working the clutch each time. Used some WD40 as well. Result: 1 day later, after leaving the car standing overnight, gear changing Today is fine (touch wood).

Note that the clutch lever/pivot is easy to access/spray once the airbox -and a hose above the lever- is removed. There is a big fat rubber hose immediately above the clutch lever, which advice says to remove. I thought this would be a pain to do -have to remove awkward hose clamps etc.- so I pulled the hose out of the way/to one side using cable ties fastened to the hole in the airbox bracket/support nearby.

From the above exercise a couple of tips occurred to me:

1. Clutch slave cylinder bleeding: Once the airbox is removed (easy), the clutch slave cylinder is clearly visible and accessible for bleeding purposes ie. no need to remove the bleeping battery tray or battery! IMO.

2. Battery tray removal: If required, for whatever reason, this procedure should be a lot easier (compared to my experience in my original post) once the airbox is removed, because all but one of the bolts securing the battery tray to the chassis is easy to see and access with the airbox out. The remaining bolt at the back should also be easier to access.

My theory on the iffy, hit-and-miss performance of the clutch subsystem -Yesterday it worked, Today it doesn't -is that the losses/inefficiencies in the system -due to wear, bit of air/contamination in the brake fluid, friction- add up to give borderline performance, and then a small change in conditions makes the clutch work or not work. I suppose it's only a fraction of a mm which determines whether the clutch disengages. I suspect that things are worse when the weather's colder, and better when the weather's warmer, possibly because it alters the pressure in the system? Just a theory. May change the master cylinder internals when I've got the cash, and/or slave cylinder.

Today it's all working, Tomorrow...?
 
Hello Folks, an update 2 weeks after lubricating the clutch lever pivot and clutch pedal -gear changing is now fine (touch wood). So I think this fix worked, thanks to whoever suggested it.

To repeat what I said in my previous post -I do think clutch operation is affected by outside temperature -worse in colder weather.
 
That's good to hear.
I need to give mine a good 'going over' soon, the rubber boot on one of the gear cables has fallen apart, and when it's wet (most of the time for the next 9-10 months I'm guessing), the gear lever fore-aft movement is quite stiff.
A quick spray with WD40 cures it, but I want to get it fixed properly before winter proper arrives.

My r/h output shaft seal has leaked since I replaced it, when I did my clutch, so I thought I may as well put a 'fresh' box on when I whip the old one off.
So, I've just bought a s/h gearbox for it, it's only done 80000miles, half what mine has.
I'll be stripping it down and replacing any bits that need it before fitting it.
 
Thought it would be useful for people following the thread to know how the fix panned out medium term. Have fun with the maintenance BikeDoc.

M.
 
>>>What did the metal M/C you fitted come off?
If M/C means master cylinder?... haven't done it or bought one yet. Read suggestion on forum to buy a new m/c, then swap the internals with the old/in-place m/c, because apparently it's a pig of a job to completely replace the clutch m/c on a Multipla.
I'll cross that bridge when the need arises...

Got my first Multipla MOT coming up in the next 2 months, so suspect I'll be Fiat Forum-ing more shortly.

Mark
 
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