Gear parts on the pavement....

[Henning F]

Hey,

 

So I borrowed an old Avensis with an automatic transmission from my neighbour today and when I changed from R to D right outside my house there was a loud noise, and the car was not able to get in gear not matter what I did. But there were no noises at all when I changed the gear lever, but whenever I pressed the gas pedal the car behaved like it was in Neutral. I had to push manually in to a parking space, and when I went out of the car I saw some parts laying on the pavement! They seem to be from some kind of rubber gasket but it also has rusted metal parts attached to it. 

Does anyone know what this is and if it's expensive / worth it to fix? The car is probably from 2005'ish and has run about 200 000km (125k miles).

 

Best regards,

Henning F

[DerekHa]

Hi Henning,

Not had experience with the Avenis nor any automatic gearbox's come to that!

The image you've taken looks very like some sort of rubber mounting bush thats completely fallen apart! Would suggest, if you can, taking a close look under the vehicle at the linkage assembley running from under the gear selector forwards towards the auto box, looking for the metal that those rubber parts where orignally bonded to.

Something in the image to give an idea on the size of those pieces would help in identifying exactly what and where they are all from. From your description of how this came about, would think the cable linking the selector to the auto box is at fault.

Good luck Hennig.

 

 

 

 

[ents]

I would say, from my own experience, that the left drive shaft has broken in the middle. The rubber pieces are from resonance damper and drive shaft rusted under it. 

[DerekHa]

Looking at those pieces in the image they could well be from a vibration damper located on one of the drive shafts.

Having said that even if the vibration damper had disintergrated I don't see how that would cause the vehicle to have no drive! Surely that damper is only fitted on the drive shaft(s) to stop harmonic vibrations when the drive shaft is rotating at speed and under power from the auto box.

If the drive shaft had broken/sheared then I would presume there would be quite a lot of noise from the drive end of the shaft thrashing around and likely causing lots of damage around it, usually all the drive from a gearbox will go to the line of least resistance, i.e to the broken shaft if that were the case.

My money is still on a failed bush on the gear shift cable, leaving the auto box in neutral and the driver unable to select any other drive, given the symptoms described. But I'm no expert!

[flash22]

As above

looks like a drive shaft harmonic rubber, over time the water and salt get under them and rot the shaft out

it's snapped a drive shaft, as it's an open diff the car will not move as both wheels need to have traction or both be off the ground

random vid off YouTube

 

[Henning F]

@flash22 This video actually seems to be quite helpful! At 2:27 there is a peak inside the connector of the drive shaft to the "wheel/brake drum" or whatever you call it (the big thingy he disconnects) and inside there it seem to be a red/rust colored something that looks very similar to the part I have pictured. If this connector is broken and fell out it means that there is no connection between the drive shaft and the wheel drum, and the drive shaft would just move freely and obviously don't move the wheel in any direction. 

Any chance you or anybody else know what this part is called?

[flash22]

That is the CV joint, the spline of the CV goes into the splines of the hub

the drive shaft is the metal rod between the inner and outer CV joints

Replace the complete driveshaft with CV's

[Henning F]

Awesome @flash22, thank you so much! I love the internet 🤩