New clutch, now pops out of 5th

[Neil A]

Hi all

Thought I’d pop this up on both the Navara and Pathfinder sections, as the gearbox is the same (as far as I know).

2007 Pathfinder diesel manual (so 6 gears). Mid-40ks in miles. Needed a new clutch recently. New one was fitted last week by an independent 4x4 specialist, which has a good reputation and I trust the guy who owns and runs it (as much as I trust anyone!).

No trouble with the gearbox at all before the new clutch. Clutch was quite well worn – was starting to slip uphill in high gear & garage agreed it needed replacing.

Since picking the car up again, it pops out of 5th gear on the overrun, unless you’re over the top when selecting 5th (push it well home & wiggle the lever, then hold it in while releasing the clutch). If I change into 5th exactly like I did before, it holds under drive, but as soon as you lift off the throttle, it pops out of gear into neutral. Only from 5th – no other gears.

The garage have had it back and checked it out and say there is nothing they can find and that they don’t believe it is anything they have done.

I’ve seen a couple of posts on other forums (US & Australia, I think) with exactly the same thing (new clutch, then pops out of 5th) but I can’t find any that had a solution.

I want to be reasonable about it. Maybe there was an existing wear problem in the gearbox or shift mechanism and the new clutch means that the issue now has more effect. In other words, it’s not a coincidence (there’s almost no way it could be), but it’s also not the garage’s fault – they did the job exactly right, but it affected things through no fault of theirs.

On the other hand, maybe someone did something not quite right and won’t own up to it.

The garage probably wonder if I’m blaming an existing problem on them in the hope they’ll fix it. I wouldn’t blame them – they probably trust me less than I trust them. I can ask other people about their work, but they can’t check me out in the same way.

Anyone got any good ideas?

Cheers

Neil

 

[quixote]

I have a mate who had exactly the same issue! Turned out the gearbox wasn't properly aligned to the engine when it was reinstalled and the direct gear (yep, you guessed it. . . . .5th) is the one that will jump out of position on overrun.

 

[solarman216]

Odd one this! as it is the gear that is direct connected to the first motion shaft, I can only assume that the box at some stage of refitting was allowed to hang on the shaft, this more usually damages the clutch centre plate thus proving it difficult to get into gear, I cannot imagine what has happened to the mainshaft/first motion shaft configuration that could cause this jumping out on the over run, it is not possible to bend either shaft although the needle rollers could of got damaged between the two, but then I would rather expect it to jump out on drive as more force is involved, I would be looking at the 5th gear indent ball and spring on the selector shaft, and maybe just call it coincidence that it has failed just as the clutch was changed, but I am generalizing here as I know little about Pathfinders specifically, Rick

 

[solarman216]

been having a bit of a dig around the forums, and yes it does seem to be an alignment issue, this begs the question of how come? as most box to engine mounts are doweled, and so self align, but if this is not the case with these beasts then box to engine bolts need backing off and the box needs adjusting till it stops the issue, very vague, but yes if the first motion shaft is pulled up/down/left/right it would cause this problem, Rick