I bought my 2005 Adria Twin back in 2008 and haven't really used it very much as the odometer still reads only about 20,000 miles so I was more than annoyed when, arriving within a few miles from home after a few hundred miles, it jammed in second gear.
To cut a long story short, it seems that Fiat, or whoever designed the Ducato had made some serious errors when it came to the gearbox.
I suspect an order had been made in the early 2000s to reduce the costs.
A critical design error was to replace the synchromesh arrangement with a much simpler (ie. cheaper) design, using circular springs.
These springs are of two types. The first type is used in 1st/2nd and 3rd/4th and the other in 3rd/4th and 5th gear.
The first type can break prematurely and completely jam the gearbox. The second can also break and wreck 5th gear.
Whether this breakage is due to poor manufacture or poor design, is irrelevant because when it occurs the owner of the vehicle is faced with a major problem.
As I couldn't afford to shell out thousands of pounds for a repair my son and I tackled the job ourselves.
It turns out that the design has other serious shortcomings, the worst of which is to direct rainwater onto the upper surface of the gearbox.
This results in major corrosion of various parts involving the clutch and the gear ident mechanism.
I'm currently writing up our experiences on my Radiomuseum.co.uk website in order to help others in the same predicament
Hopefully we can complete the work....
To cut a long story short, it seems that Fiat, or whoever designed the Ducato had made some serious errors when it came to the gearbox.
I suspect an order had been made in the early 2000s to reduce the costs.
A critical design error was to replace the synchromesh arrangement with a much simpler (ie. cheaper) design, using circular springs.
These springs are of two types. The first type is used in 1st/2nd and 3rd/4th and the other in 3rd/4th and 5th gear.
The first type can break prematurely and completely jam the gearbox. The second can also break and wreck 5th gear.
Whether this breakage is due to poor manufacture or poor design, is irrelevant because when it occurs the owner of the vehicle is faced with a major problem.
As I couldn't afford to shell out thousands of pounds for a repair my son and I tackled the job ourselves.
It turns out that the design has other serious shortcomings, the worst of which is to direct rainwater onto the upper surface of the gearbox.
This results in major corrosion of various parts involving the clutch and the gear ident mechanism.
I'm currently writing up our experiences on my Radiomuseum.co.uk website in order to help others in the same predicament
Hopefully we can complete the work....
