Where Did My Gears Go?

[johnw63]

Hello all,

I have a 2007 Aygo Black with a manual gearbox and recently had to replace the offside front wheel bearing. After 7 years of corrosion, removing the relevant ball joints and hub was taxing to say the least so a little excess force was required.

In reassembly I have found myself with no gears. If I rotate one front wheel the other turns so the drive shafts are linking. Any ideas in what I may have done to cause this? My attention has purely been in the hub area.

Many thanks in advance for your help.

John

[Conrod]

Double check the driveshaft on the side you worked on, is pushed full home into the gearbox.

[johnw63]

Thank you Conrod, I'll check that. I figured because the nearside wheel revolves when turning the one I worked on it must be fully home.

[Planemo]

One of my driveshafts fell out of the gearbox when I took the hubs off to lower mine. Cue lots of panic about oil pouring out of the gearbox chasing the shaft but thankfully it didnt happen. A push of the shaft (ooh) whilst twisting got it back in easily but the point I really want to make is: Is it even possible to get the hub back on and everything bolted up WITHOUT the shaft being back in? I mean, it's not short enough to come off the splines with everything bolted up or we would have all our driveshafts falling out in normal use.

The fact that your wheels are rotating properly suggests that the shaft must be in correctly?!

I will be interested to find out what the problem turns out to be!

[Conrod]

Yes they say "no news is good news" ! What was the outcome John ?

[johnw63]

Yes, that was my thought too Planemo. I'll get under the car over the weekend and see what I can find. To be honest, I replaced the wheel bearing due to the usual noises coming from the front offside area when driving. Perhaps that wasn't the problem and the effort to remove the hub actually caused something else to break - the real problem!

[Mike169]

Hmmmmmmmm this sounds like you might of shredded the splines on the driveshaft/hub, hope not as it could be expensive to repair.

Mike.

[Conrod]

I had a noise on my wheel bearing and just bought a low mileage hub off eBay, been on there 3 years + now, was told the bearing is tricky to fit as it only goes in one way, also has the abs sensor contacts in one end only.