Manual 5 speed gearbox: 1st gear hard to select?

Arnie_Oli

Member
Has anyone got any thoughts on a manual gearshift that's hard to place in 1st gear?

It will slot into 2nd gear then across the box into 1st every time. If I hold the shift against 1st and slowly release the clutch there's no change and 1st is still hard to locate.

I am tempted to swap out the 5 speed gear shift mechanism and the linkage/shifter cables. I have been underneath and had a look, the cables seem to move freely without issue from underneath when moved by had by me.

Has anyone got nay thoughts or had similar happen to them?

and

Does anyone know the part number for the 5 speed manual shift mechanism that fits in the dashboard?
 

Arnie_Oli

Member
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Eric Experience

Well-known member
Arnie.
It will not be the cables. Before you spend any money on it do this check. Get under and unplug the cables from the selector rod. Get hold of the selector rod and rotate it and pull it in and out to go through the gears. If it is very hard to push in you have dirt behind the steel cover over the shaft where it goes into the box. To fix it you have to make a small hole in the cover so you can flush out the dirt. The steel is hard so you will need some sort of small grinder. Once you have your hole just spray WD40 into the hole until the run of is clean. Eric.
 

Arnie_Oli

Member
Ah cheers will input and have a look. Was reading the gen in reinstall guide which was talking about aligning the cables for smooth gear changes so I was presuming they may have slipped a bit off the connectors.

I do remember seeing a guide on this. Have you got a photo to hand showing where to drill/grind (if required)?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro which means I am probably lying under the van wishing I had a crawler and a large warm workshop I could park in.
 

stroud_omnibus

New member
I've not long been through this. Had what I thought was a noisy bearing in my 'box. Had it rebuilt and it was a bit quieter. Anyway, had no end of trouble getting smooth gears and it kept jumping out of first. My mechanic, then the gearbox rebuilder said it was excessive slack in the selector. Okay, it was a bit worn. Bit the bullet and bought a new selector and cables (part no's for my '05 413CDi were: A000 260 01 09 for the shifter and A901 260 14 38 for the cables) but not the ball joints on the ends as they had been replaced earlier. Still a pain to change but spent an hour and a half in a quiet car park setting the cables up where they connect with the ball joints. Little adjustments at a time and a drive around until all okay.

However, the gear change became more difficult as the oil got warm. I had put in the correct spec (75w80 synthetic) so took a chance and bought 'genuine' Mercedes oil. Very expensive but, for whatever reason, it worked. Gears are all fine now. MB part number for the 'right' oil is: A001 989 84 03/09
 

Arnie_Oli

Member
My gear changes are no more difficult when the engine/gearbox is warm and there are no noises.
I really ought to check the gearbox fluid though thanks for the thought!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro which means I am probably lying under the van wishing I had a crawler and a large warm workshop I could park in.
 

Arnie_Oli

Member
Problem solved. Figured out which cable did what as working on my own.

With engine off stick her in first gear and climb under. Then note where the cables are. There are two, on controls left/right motion (x axis) the other up down (y axis). The y axis cable has a big counterweight attached to it and the x axis pulls and pushes the collar in and out of the gearbox.

I marked both cables with first selected with a black marker and then disconnected the spring clip removing the cables from their location. This allowed me to check the mechanism to see if it was fluid and free; it was with no indication of any notchy or sticky movement.

I had a feeling that the cable for the X axis wasn't quite aligned right so putting the cables back into their holders and the spring cable back I removed the end pop clip off the end of the X cable and pushed it into the end by a 1/4 inch. This is he square black latch at the end which pops up easily using just a fingernail. You just need some decent pliers to grab the shiny cable end to move it into the clip end. When you are happy with the adjustment just push the clip back down. I the. went up top started her up and tested the gears. Wonderfully they moved like silk.

As a further test I moved the same cable another 1/4 further using the same process and found I had obviously gone past the sweet point and the gears were again hard to select so put the cable back to where I had first moved it to.



Time taken to fix was five minutes. It took me a year to be irritated enough by the notchy first gear to get under and sort it! Funny how you can get used to a habitual double clutch change from second to first gear every time to get first gear.

The y axis cable is hard to get wrong, it has a huge throw so any cable movement causes negligible issues. You can see that the x axis cable moves half that of the y by the clean shiny area of the cable. I would suggest that any gearshift alignment issues will be down to this cable being out of whack so if you are certain it is down to cables start there first.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro which means I am probably lying under the van wishing I had a crawler and a large warm workshop I could park in.
 
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Crosscut

Member
Arnie.
It will not be the cables. Before you spend any money on it do this check. Get under and unplug the cables from the selector rod. Get hold of the selector rod and rotate it and pull it in and out to go through the gears. If it is very hard to push in you have dirt behind the steel cover over the shaft where it goes into the box. To fix it you have to make a small hole in the cover so you can flush out the dirt. The steel is hard so you will need some sort of small grinder. Once you have your hole just spray WD40 into the hole until the run of is clean. Eric.
Hi, do you have some more detail about where to grind the hole?

I think this is the problem I have with my 2006 tn1 but I'm reluctant to start making holes in the gearbox without knowing exactly where..... I have visions of accidentally draining the gearbox oil and everything getting much more expensive.

Thanks
 

liammcl

New member


Does anyone know the part number for the control rod shown under the Y cable on the photo?

On our 4t sprinter I'm replacing the cable but the ball joints on the ends of this rod are very worn & loose.
 

Dave_S

New member
Apologies - old thread resurrection - I've just changed the end joints and as Liam notes, I've a lot of slack in the selector rod. I've ordered one (part: Genuine Mercedes Benz Sprinter 903 Drawbar Shift Arm Rod Gearshift A9032600189), but has anyone fitted one of these? Is there any particular trick to removing/replacing it? The cable end of the rod is very loose and slips off easily, but the other end appears to be very tight - any guidance on how to release this would be really appreciated. Thanks guys.
 

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