54 Punto (1.2 I think, daughters friends car), just lost gear control whilst being driven last night (then towed in to my mates garage).
We had a quick look at it today and it looks like the linkage / cable is broken or come undone at the gearstick end as the stick flops backwards and forwards (but not sideways) quite freely but no movement at the gearbox end.
We will get it on his lift next week (hopefully Monday) but I wondered if anyone has experience of these jobbies to predict if it was something easily repairable (something come undone etc).
I've seen cable pairs on eBay for ~£125 (~£300+ from Fiat) so hopefully it's just that?
Are you sure that you need to get underneath? You might see the top end of the cable by pulling away the gaiter from around the gear lever. I'm just guessing here, but it would be a quicker thing to check.
We did but you can't see a lot Dan. It's just the plastic inverted pyramid that bounds the limits of the stick movement.
We, we sorta did but looking at the other end of the (two) cables where they join the gearbox and with the gearstick doing full travel fore-and-aft, the gearbox end(s) of the cable did nothing. ;-( [1]
Cheers, T i m
[1] Well, the gate cable might still be intact as the stick was pretty solid side to side. Given that I understand it was stuck in reverse, that would make sense?
Well, I was just guessing, I'm afraid. Only last week, I had to attend to the cables on my Fiesta, since the gearchange was getting very stiff. Fortunately for me, the top ends of the cables can be exposed by pulling the gaiter off. The bottom ends are under a clip-on cover by the battery. Spraying everything with 3-in-1 freed it all up nicely, but it sounds like one of yours has popped off.
I don't know that that wasn't the case with daughters friend, especially as she is pretty new to the car herself (who many not have 'noticed that the gear selector mech was stiff or catchy in one plane, if it was).
In this case the gearbox ends of the cables appear to be exposed in any case and it looks like the inner cable is coated in a (self lubricating) plastic of some sort.
From the diagrams I've seen on the net (the HBOL is locked in the boot of the car and she only has one key (and the garage has the other )) it looks like they are two independent push-pull type cables and one has either worn and broken at the gearstick end (on the floor), has come unclipped (if it wasn't getting stiff or notchy previously) or something else had broken, like whatever the cable end is attached to?
Popped off or broken, yes. I hope it's the former as she doesn't have much cash and has just paid £2000+ for her insurance. ;-(
It seems it is a bit of a lottery re insurance groups with this 1.2 8V Punto being a G7, same as our 1.6 8V Meriva and higher than daughters
I had one in with the same fault, just change the appropriate cable (IIRC they came separately from Fiat BICBW) The cable had got corroded and stiff at the gearbox end.
Would you think that would be the right thing to do MrC, just changing one cable? I think it would be perfectly reasonable to do if:
The owner was short of cash and the other cable was still fine. The job was easy to do later if required. The owner was short of cash and the job was difficult so best done now whilst doing the other one. The likelihood of the 'other' cable failing was 'highly unlikely' (because they rarely go)?
Ok.
Ok, that does seem to tie in then.
Can you remember how straightforward the job was ... eg, (once up in the air), could you get to everything and it was just a matter of re-threadling the new cable and clipping the ends in / on?
I do not remember the exact details, but it was not too complex (or it would stick in the mind) If the cables are available separately and the other one is fine, then just change the one, IIRC the way they come out underneath makes one more susceptible to corrosion/dirt than the other one.
That particular job stuck in my mind because the owner reported the car stolen while I had it !! She had forgotten that she had asked me to collect it !! Happily I was not pulled up, her son worked out that it might be worth ringing me about it, and all was well in the end.
A few years back I woke up and half asleep looked out of the window to find my car gone.
I called the police and as I was waiting for them to turn up I realised that my wife had recently passed her test and had probably taken it off.
She turned up half hour later telling me how she had started it up and driven off to the shop all on her own. I called the police back and very red faced explained what had happened.
It looks like it was the main gear cable had broken off just where it was swaged into the fitting at the end. A new cable has been ordered locally (£75 all in) and hopefully it will be a straightforward (time wise) replacement job.
The background concerns (for me anyway) still are:
1) Did a stiff(ening) gearbox cause the cable to fail or was it simply fatigue after 13 years of use (there was no sign of corrosion etc).
2) Why was there no sideways movement on the stick, even when the gearbox was in neutral (or maybe we missed it)?
I would imagine when the cable was under tension, everything would work as it should, it might just be when it was under compression it wouldn't hold a straight line. So, if 1st and rev were both in the same general direction (forwards), and that meant the main cable was under tension, then it may not have played a part?
The current driver (this was previously a family 'learner car' so may have had it's fair share of abuse) said that she sometimes had difficulty getting the gearbox into first and reverse, so I wondered if that was a function of the failing cable (if it did fail over time, not instantly) or syncromesh going on first (assuming it has it etc).
I say that because she tells me that if it didn't go straight into first, releasing the clutch and depressing it again would often allow her to select first ok.
Well, quite, but the question was more of the likely 'why', in this specific instance?
eg. The driver doesn't have much money to spend on stuff, especially if there is a 'known chance' that replacing the broken cable is only fixing a symptom rather than the cause. ;-(
The synchro has pointed teeth that are supposed however they meet to slide down the sides of the points to fully engage the teeth. If it's been mashed a few times the points become blunt and then they meet worn flat to worn flat. When the synchro teeth line up it should go in very easy, when they don't then no amount of force will put it in gear. With a cable that force will do damage. Better teach her to feel for it and not push so hard. It's called mechanical sympathy.
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