Hi guys,
sorry not been on here much lately. Hope every ones ok....
I hope this all makes sense…. My old 1.8 auto has always had a problem when selecting 1st gear. By this I mean the car goes into limp mode and the flashing ‘S’ appears on the dash. Only 1st gear, but recently, occasionally, has started doing it when going into R or even D now. Always reset by restarting the car, and only seems to do it in the morning when it’s cold and damp at this time of year.
The problem will obviously only get worse over time so; I was told that the gear selector attached to the side of the auto gear box has a cable (fed from gear selector leaver in the cabin) that moves a part similar to a rotor arm for example, that rotates by the cable being pulled (selecting P,R,N,D etc..). This ‘arm’ then rotates and makes contact with electric connectors for each gear. Telling the gear box (ECU?) what gear the car is in preventing starting in 1st for example.
As this was never deemed a serviceable item by VX I understand this can be a fairly common problem, as the unit will normally never have never been cleaned/re-greased.
Has anyone done this job before? If so what’s involved? Cheers guys
I've done it on my old auto. It's not too bad of a job, just a couple of nuts to remove, the selector switch unit is just under where the power steering reservoir is, on top of the transmission. It's secured to the transmission dipstick tube with a metal bracket. One large nut on top of the switch itself and a wiring harness and plug.
The way you described it, it sounds exactly like it needs taking apart, and re-greasing. Old original grease gets worn and dirty and can cause resistance and therefore faults showing up.
It does have a cable going from the selector lever straight to the selector switch. Note the position of the switch unit between P and 1, I can't remember but I think you need to select 2 position to remove the switch, after you remove the nuts that hold it on. There is a short shaft that sticks out of the transmission which the selector switch fits onto. It can only come off/go back on in one position.
The switch unit cover on the back is held by small grub screws, careful to not round those off, they can be tight coming off for the first time!
Inside there will be some brass contact strips and thin rectangular sliders, careful to not lose those sliders, they can fall out once you pop the cover off. Note their position as you open the cover. It's a case of picking them out, cleaning them up, and cleaning up all the old grease inside the unit, sticking in some fresh suitable grease, spread it generously from corner to corner, re-fitting the thin rectangular sliders in the positions they were in before, and putting the cover back on.
Re-fit the selector switch, tighten up the large nut, and before plugging it back in, move the gear lever up and down a few times to make sure that the notches in each position are lined up as they should be. Sometimes it can need a little adjustment of moving the switch by hand a tiny amount to get it spot on, or it might not, you'll see when you get there.
If that's all good, plug it back in, reattach the bracket nut to the transmission dipstick tube, then fire her up and move the lever up/down to check for any faults, if it ain't flashing, take it for a short drive, selecting each gear as you go.
Hope that makes sense, I'm working from my shot up memory.
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