marcuskelly Posted May 25, 2013 Share Posted May 25, 2013 To avoid paying the exuberant costs to the few motorhome garage repair shops I used a local mechanic to change my clutch. It was put in and reassembled, I took the motorhome for a test drive, I could not find third gear, every other gear if fine and easy to find. The only other problem was a noise, which disappears when the clutch in applied? I would like to point out that the clutch was rusty, battered and in terrible state when it came out. The actual clutch went while driving off a slip road to a motorway, a change of gear and the whole thing just went ape. Is it possible the gears are damaged or more likely the clutch fitting was wrong? Please help. Thanks. :D :$ *-) :'( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wooie Posted May 25, 2013 Share Posted May 25, 2013 What does your " Local Mechanic " say ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marcuskelly Posted May 25, 2013 Author Share Posted May 25, 2013 Hi Woole, He said the clutch was put in proper and the noise could be a defective release bearing New bearing that came with clutch. or what ever the new bearing is called. He has no idea why it will not go into third. Every other gear is sound, easy to find, no trouble going in or out? He is not an expert on motorhome vehicles. Just a good mechanic who knows his way around an engine?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gocro Posted May 25, 2013 Share Posted May 25, 2013 It's his responsibility to extract the faulty part and replace, he can take it up with his supplier. It's likely he disturbed the gear selector settings when he removed the gearbox, it's not rocket science"" to a trained mechanic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colin Posted May 25, 2013 Share Posted May 25, 2013 I can think of no reason why a mechanic would need to be a motorhome specialist to do this job, it should be the same as any commercial van. As for the gear selection, I've no experience of that box so you need someone like nick to answer, but many vehicles will suffer gear selection problems due to wear in the bearings (not clutch release bearing). I've previously had problems with Ford and VW boxes that have had selection problems and required bearings to be replaced. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest 1footinthegrave Posted May 25, 2013 Share Posted May 25, 2013 I have read that the clutch change job on this particular model can be a right pig, I've also been told that if the mechanic is not up to speed with this particular Fiat model they are likely to be in out of their depth, it seems the problem is not helped by the average mechanic coming across many Sevel based vans in this country. All I can say is if you were getting all gears before you should certainly be getting them after the job was done, did this "mechanic" even take it for a test drive afterwards, apparently not. I have been stuffed by enough mechanics over the years to know there are some real chancers out there, get back to them and do some table thumping, and a phone call to trading standards as well if I was you to get some advice. P.S it also sounds like a good chance the old thrust bearing has been left in, I'm sure I read that the clutch fork and release bearing on the 2.8 jtd of that vintage has an issue when it comes to fitting. Maybe if one of our regulars looks in on the thread ( Euroserve ) he'll clue you up more, good luck with it. ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
euroserv Posted May 28, 2013 Share Posted May 28, 2013 Hello, The release bearing is a pain to get out without damaging it and since the new clutch kit will have been supplied with a new bearing, it will almost certainly have been replaced. We have had kits from Valeo and Sachs that have been a bit noisy and we have just had to put up with it. It's a designed-in fault by the clutch manufacturers and not Fiat or any other manufacturer of vehicles. Love or hate concentric slave cylinders; at least they have pretty much ruled out this kind of noise now! The gear selection problem should have shown itself when the box was tested by going through the gears while it was off the vehicle. If it did not, there may be an issue with the selector cables or the pivots that they sit on. The frame that the pivots and selectors are fitted to is pretty sturdy but could get bent if handled badly but this would probably affect more than one gear. A good clean up may sort this out but if not it is possible that a piece of damaged synchromesh may have gotten stuck and is preventing the engagement of 3rd gear. We always strain the gear oil as it is dropped to see what falls out. Did they remove and re-fill the gear oil? There are various magnets inside the box to collect broken (ferrous) metal pieces and smaller particles as they wear but the brass springs on the synchro's are little buggers for getting jammed where you don't want them to be. If it is not something simple, it will be a matter of removing the box again and stripping it down to find the problem. It is not really the garage's fault if there is damage inside the box and even if they had road tested it before handing it back to you, a damaged brass part floating around may not be immediately apparent, and just the same could potentially move on and stop being a problem soon! If it were my van I would drive it around in top gear for 20 or 30 miles and if I still could not get 3rd gear I would strip it down. There probably is no damage to the actual gears, just one or more synchro's. Nick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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