[ROVERNET - UK] 2000TC Gearbox trouble & Lucas #40660 dist.

[Gordon Harrower]

Fletcher wrote:

> Hi guys-
> My first post, though I've been lurking a while. I'm in NW 
> Pennsylvania, 4 dead 2000, 2SC, 2TC
> Re:
>
> "Gordon Harrower <griffo at comcast.net>
> The symptoms, which emerged abruptly, were an inability to shift into 
> 2nd, 3rd, and 4th gears.  The shop to which I brought it seemed 
> intimidated by the whole thing, but offered the theory that the rubber 
> spacers in the gearshift were worn, causing excess play in the 
> mechanism."
>
> In my experience - 40 yrs fixing British, incl a bunch of Rovers, this 
> problem is due to the failure of the third motion shaft bush on which 
> are located 2nd & 3rd gears. In fact, I bought (real cheap) my first 
> 68TC in 72 because it had just this problem. The one piece bush has a 
> thrust washer machined in the center of the bushes for the two gears. 
> When it breaks up, the gears and synchro hubs are no longer located 
> endwise on the shaft. This lets all sorts of interesting stuff happen, 
> in a random manner. Like when you try 2nd gear, 2nd moves forward away 
> from the synchro, pushes 3rd forward, pushes 3/4 synchro forward, and 
> therefore tries to engage 3rd & 4th at the same time as second. It can 
> do things like kick itself out of 3rd when you come off the gas, 
> auto-selecting 2 or 4, whichever is least desireable. Or, it won't go 
> into some gear(s) as you experienced. All this changes depending on 
> where the fragments are, and what the loads on the gears, selectors, 
> and detents are. The forces on the linkage from all this cause the 
> various detents to fight each other, and the end movement of the gears 
> makes multiple synchros try to synch their respective gears all at 
> once, which can't happen. Very exciting! When I drove mine home in 
> very hilly terrain, I could usually get 1 & 4, but 2& especially 3 
> were difficult, and the car had had no maintenance in about 45000 
> miles, hence had little power available. I met or heard of a number of 
> cars with this trouble; when I bought the new parts for mine I was 
> told that the new bush was of improved spec because of this problem - 
> it sure cost a lot! That may mean that most cars had it replaced (and 
> cured) if they had many miles.
> The various rubber bushes in the linkage will cause all sorts of 
> sloppy, but won't do this. Nothing for it but to pull the gearbox I fear.
>
> The Lucas distributor mentioned a couple of days ago is listed as 
> "Humber new series 1 and 2, Super Snipe, 1959 (later)" in the Lucas 
> master catalog. Will likely work in most 6 cyl applications, but not 
> quite the correct advance curve for anything else.
>
> Fletcher R Millmore
>
>
>
>
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Update.  After finding a new gearbox for my TC, I drained the oil from 
the old one.  It was filled with the residue, from tiny bits to some as 
big as the head on a quarter, of a synchromesh ring, which explains 
everything.  Gordon.