Technical Stiff Gearchange

[tessiedog]

Hi folks.
Gearchange in my 2004 1.4 16v Stilo has become very stiff all of a sudden. Car was off the road for about a week while I was "refreshing" bits of the front suspension (still a work in progress), but first drive afterwards, the gearchange was very stiff. All gears pretty much the same, inc reverse - any ideas folks, drivetrain still seems ok as it was before, apart from that?
Cheers.

 

[Ralf S.]

I would try bleeding the clutch. It's not doing its thing at the moment.

It looks like 1.4 has an external slave cylinder, so have a good look at it (peel back the rubber bellows etc.) to see if it's leaking.

I dunno how fiddling with the suspension could knacker it .. but it could be that a few days of no use might have made something that was becoming a bit stiff, a bit stiffer... causing some fluid to leak out when you first pressed the pedal.

And it's 'orrible, cold and damp now. Any fule knoe that it's the season of serious car problems and/or stuff that needs you to be grovelling around under the car catching pneumonia... Hopefully Santa will bring you a scrap of old carpet this year..


Ralf S.

 

[tessiedog]

Thanks for the reply Ralph. I've just bought a nice shiny Vauxhall Meriva (don't laugh, it's a friendly and accommodating wee thing), so could be that my Stilo days, are drawing to a close, after nearly 16 years of from new ownership. As can be seen from my recent posts on here, the "needing to be done" list has become fairly extensive, and along the lines that you mention, I've got less than no inclination to be scrabbling about on the cold damp ground over the winter trying to fix stuff, which would need to be done, since I need a car on a daily basis.
So a heartfelt and sincere thanks to you and everyone else for all the advice you've given me on the forum over the years, which has undoubtedly helped me to keep the old girl on the road for so long. Got a vague notion of maybe keeping her as a hobby car rather than a day in day out driver and so the fixing up side of things would be a bit less under pressure, but haven't made my mind up yet, I know, for example, that Stilos usually don't take too well to periods of inactivity......
Cheers

 

[tessiedog]

.... couldn't do it. Still got the old girl which, for the moment, I'll run as a spare/hobby motor rather than as a daily driver that I need to use every day, and will see how it goes. Actually, some of the adverse issues with her have moved on a bit (finished the front suspension refresh and got it tracked up, which has sorted much of the funny noises which were coming from up front, and the front end handling is a lot better too, not perfect but certainly an improvement. Got the airbag light reset and it's not come back on, hopefully cleaning the connectors under the seats has done the trick for now. Oh and the boot has decided that it no longer wants to stay locked shut and works normally, for the time being at least). So she's a bit easier to live with, which is good enough for going on with.??

 

[Ralf S.]

Haha! That's the spirit!

The old beast is trying its best to hang on, which is the right attitude/half the battle... so it'd be a pity to send it to the knackers yard.

Keep the Meriva until Spring and then give it to your missus. Stilo deserves another summer or two, at least.


Ralf S.

 

[tessiedog]

Aye, there'll always be something to be done just to keep her in a (sort of) reasonable running condition. Garage reckons she really needs new gear cables, but greased them up meantime, and much better, helped I think by fairly regular use again over the last couple of weeks. Other thing is, and not sure if it's my imagination,
but front end handling seems to have further improved with use- is that a thing (recently wishbones, track rod ends and drop links all done and tracked up)???
So that's how it's going to be I think for the foreseeable, now that I've got things settled in my head that she is an old car with lots of miles on and that I don't need to rely on her day in day out, the maintenance and repair thing becomes a lot more relaxed, so we'll run with that and see how it goes.
Looks like I'll still be on here with stoopid questions after all....