I'm looking for a spring...vague enough?

[white101]

On a couple of occasions recently my gears have refused in hitting 1st, 2nd & rev as nicely as it had been. I did a bit of work in the marvelous wiki pages and used advice from there the next time this happened (knock the engine off and start in gear, not always easy!) A visit to Garage that does my MOT suggested a spring had gone in the gearbox end of the business but they didn't have the correct tools to drop the gearbox and inspect further and do the work.

I called down to a transmission specialist locally who viewed the gear lever movement and concluded that it was indeed a failed spring not returning or allowing good movement. He then suggested it was an easy job as I didn't need to drop the gearbox and not really worth his time and I should manage it myself, '13mm spanner 3 bolts new spring bingo' to paraphrase.

Its a 5 spd box on a 1.6 JXTD, as you can probably tell I'm not a full time spanner dude and was wondering if anybody (who can make sense of this ramble) would understand/agree. Not averse to working on the van I've done a few things but with summer holidays fast approaching and a weekend away before then, the last thing I want to do is a ham "interfered with" "cock" up.

I'm going underneath now to snap some pics and see exactly what I 'might' be working on.

[white101]

With a bit more research I found this http://www.justkampers.com/catalog/prod ... egory/233/

Now that looks like a harmless little spring but how easy to fit it? Will I die?

[CovKid]

If its the gearlever, you'll need the whole kit, not just the spring. https://club8090.co.uk/wiki/Ge ... Components" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The plastic ball/onion breaks up and the spring drops down. Big picture is correct, inset is what happens when plastic wears away - spring drops down:

[Aidan]

very, very rare the detent spring in the box fails, I have dozens of them in stock, 3x 11mm bolts to remove to get reverse switch cover off, if spring is intact then problem is elsewhere

[white101]

I read all your guys notes on this in wiki extensively these last few days and learnt quite a bit, thanks!

Both transmission & MOT guy suggested it was the spring near the reserve switch. I've taken some pics of it tonight to familiarize myself with it (if I can log into flickr I'll upload) the MOT guy is a VW owner and seemed to suggest this was the only problem but suggested I would need have the box removed.

If its a simple thing (he say's) like replacing the spring I will have a go. If it makes no difference then I know have a problem elsewhere!

[white101]

I will lift the gator on the gearstick tomorrow and have a look around this area as well.

[Aidan]

no need to remove the box to remove the reverse switch housing
but I think they are confusing 5 speed and 4 speed boxes action, which are different - on the 5 speed the spring only pushes stick to 2nd 3rd plane, there's an extra piece of metal under the spring on a 4 speed or syncro box so the spring pushes it all the way to 3rd and 4th plane (ie what would be 4th 5th on a 5 speed)