[Macka]

Hi...first time to the forum with a question. Thanks in advance! I'm in London and have a 2006 L322 petrol 4.4l with 180k miles on it. The gearbox was rebuilt about six months ago. Leaking transmission cooler pipes were replaced a few weeks ago.

Here's what is happening: The car drives fine and moves through the gears smoothly until it has been driven for five or 10 minutes and nears regular temperature. At that point, it regularly "falls" out of drive with no warning and is in netural. I pull over, put it in PARK and it displays a number of fault messages, including limited gear range, HDC etc. I put it into drive and it pulls away but in what feels like in 4th or 5th gear and stays in that gear. At this point, the readout on the dash can show anything from it being in Reverse, Park or nothing. It even often "thinks" it is in Reverse because the side mirror dips and the reverse camera comes on whilst driving forward. Once fully warmed up, if I stop, turn it off and then on again, it drives normally. My initial thought is that it could be solenoid issues or a valve body issue. Ideas? Theories?

Thanks!!
Macka

 

[RRToadHall]

Re: Gearbox "falling" into neutral - solenoid issue?

Sounds more like a misadjusted or binding shift cable not allowing it to firmly seat into Drive. Another option is that when adjusted the cable sleeve lock/clamp was not torqued properly and the complete cable has slipped a hair.

 

[MARK_C]

Re: Gearbox "falling" into neutral - solenoid issue?

Because your dash ger indicators come off the mechanical portion of the shifter assembly and your gear selector status display seems to be out of sync with what gear the transmission is actually in I would first look at the shifter cable. The dash lights are controlled by the position of the shifter lever, and the gear selected in the transmission is controlled by a position switch on the mechanical pool valve in the transmission The lower end of the able cable that attaches to the spool valve at the transmission has a clamp nut that holds the shift cable to the transmission housing, and these things get rusty and are easy to get out of adjustment which then screws up what gear the transmission is actually in and what gear the car thinks its in. The whole clamp thing is about the cheapest piece of engineering on the whole vehicle, and it doesn't take much to mess up the alignment, a few mm will do it. Check the alignment of that cable before digging into the guts of the transmission.

 

[Macka]

Re: Gearbox "falling" into neutral - solenoid issue?

Thanks guys. This makes sense because I actually had the shift cable lever replaced a few weeks ago at the same time I had the transmission cooler pipes replaced. It was looking a little corroded. It sounds like maybe the garage didn't quite get the adjustment right. It works when cold and when full hot, but not in between. Heat expansion of a couple of millimetres may be what is causing the problem!

 

[Robbing]

Re: Gearbox "falling" into neutral - solenoid issue?

This sounds exactly like what my Rover is doing but I didn't mess with the cable at all. Did you ever get the issue resolved?