Nissan Serena transmission faults.

[delambo]

Whilst I started my career on the nuts and bolts problems, I quickly progressed to diagnostics. I am currently having a few problems with the missus's motor and was hopeing someone might be able to offer some advise. This problem has some history so I will start from the begining.

I bought the car (extremely) cheap because it needed a new gearbox, and the climate control didnt work. I fixed the climate control no problems as thats what I do these days. As for the gearbox, I removed it, stripped it and intended to rebuild it (the front bearing had collapsed and the input shaft needed replacing) but couldnt get the bits in the hurry that I needed so I bought a secondhand one (on the day I needed to leave for an 80th birthday party 200 miles away!). When I inspected the box I found it to be seized in second gear since it had been sat on the shelf in second with no oil in for some time. I simply put some oil in and managed to quite simply unseize it and find a box full of gears, so I bought it. When I got it home I found it was different to mine!! The starter motor came through on the gearbox side on mine, and on the new box the starter came through on the on the engine side. So rather than get the train to the party I decided to transfer the case from my old box to the new one! It went quite smoothly and the internals of the box were the same so it didnt matter too much. When I fitted the box I found to my horror that the one bit of the case that I didnt change was the bit where the bracket that holds the gear change cable mounts. Because of the differences in the way the starter motor sits I couldnt use the bracket for the new box, and because of the diferences in the mounting points I couldnt use the old bracket - so I fabricated my own. The vehice got us to the party and back with no problems at all, and the gear change (where it has seized in gear) had got better and smoother all the way. The vehicle then went on happily to do another 6 months and 8,000 miles until yesterday! The missus started to complain that she couldnt get 2nd, 4th and reverse. I adjusted the cable so we cpould get these gears, but at the expense of loosing 1st, 3rd and 5th! Naturally assuning it was a cable fault, I removed the cable and checked it. No signs of wear or fraying, nice and free moving (but I oiled it anyway). So i decided it must be a linkage problem - all the linkages are nice and free with no signs of play. I layed under the vehicle and checked all the gears, they were all there and went in and out quite smoothly. I put the cable back on and routed it slightly differently to give it less tight bends and turns then adjusted it so that when it was in neutral the stick sat exatly in the middle of its stops. When I then tried to put in 1st, 3rd, and 5th, it hit the stops before it went in tom gear, but it went in to 2nd, 4th and reverse with minimal movement. I then adjusted it so that it goes into 1st, 3rd and 5th, and it still goes into the other gears but you have to push it a long way into to get 1st 3rd and 5th and when it goes in there is a lot of "spring in the cable " if you push it forward. Fine I thought I can live with that and took it for a test drive, it went nicely through the gears, 1st 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th. Then I had to change down, it went nicely into into 4th then wouldnt go into 3rd, I had to double de-clutch. It went nicely into 2nd, but when I stopped I couldnt get it in to 1st. I had to rev the vehicle, put my foot on the clutch and wait for the speeds of the shafts to synchronise before it would go into 1st. I am giessing it is the cable at fault. I guess it is streached and therefore has too much spring in it when it is being pushed, hence it will push the gears in when it is easy and not when it is difficult, and it will pull the gears in or out whether is is easy or not. I do have to be sure before I go and shell out £140 on a new cable (I am absolutely brassic). I have never had any problems with gear cables other than breaking, so I am not prepaired to chance it. Anyone come accross this problem before? Any suggestions?

[fireman]

Had 1 of these cars with same sort of problem. I contacted the dealer cos i didnt fancy removing the box and just wanted to clarify it was bolloxed before i farmed the job out. But i was told the cable outer had probably collapsed. This gives the impression the inner cable had stretched hence your selector problem. Try to feel for lumps along the lengh of your outer cable mate and see if yours has the same problem.

[jakeyfly]

havent had any problems with the nissan cables, but mercedes vito springs to mind with streched cables and its quite common.
can you modify the bracket at all to make it any better? just till you can get a new one

[delambo]

Originally Posted by fireman

Had 1 of these cars with same sort of problem. I contacted the dealer cos i didnt fancy removing the box and just wanted to clarify it was bolloxed before i farmed the job out. But i was told the cable outer had probably collapsed. This gives the impression the inner cable had stretched hence your selector problem. Try to feel for lumps along the lengh of your outer cable mate and see if yours has the same problem.

Makes an awful lot of sense! I will check and keep you informed.

[delambo]

Well I finally bought a set of cables and now its fine. What a tight ar5e I i am!

[drc200]

My cables end has corroded on the gearbox, I expect you would have seen this but thought I would mention it just in case. When you move stick back or forth the outer cable moves making it difficult to reach 1st.

Somebody mentioned cables for £140, can you tell me where? my local nissan dealer wants 250+vat for a pair!

Thanks
Dave