Guest Posted May 21, 2011 Report Share Posted May 21, 2011 Good thing I finally got approved this week after two months of lurking. At about 9:00 this evening I was going down a shallow canyon at about 50 mph or so tonight on the way back from a run. Naturally, I shifted into neutral and coasted all the way down the slope. At the bottom of the canyon I naturally shifted into fourth to make it back up the hill. Nothing happened, just revved the engine. Shifted into third, second, and eventually first as I kept slowing down. All the mechanics seemed to be shifting in place, but the car won't move. I never heard any loud noise, or even a modest clunk or chunk. I simply shifted out of gear, and it never went back. What do? Also, the internets have provided me a clutch kit for a reasonable price - if I bring the kit and the car to any old tranny shop, do you think they'd be man enough to take it on, or would I be forced to import a Peugeot mechanic to San Diego? I don't really have a whole lot of money to drop on it right now, so I'm wondering if either A) you guys have had similar issues with 505 transmissions and know some magic fix - there was no bad noise so maybe something incredibly stupid happened? B] one of you guys could bless me with a cheap clutch assembly, or C) you know of any Peugeot mechanics that would service in San Diego and not cost me an arm and a leg. This is so frustrating - pretty much the only thing that couldn't go wrong with my life for the next couple of months just did. Advice? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bean Posted May 21, 2011 Report Share Posted May 21, 2011 Clutches don't usually go out that fast - especially Peugeot ones. They'll slip for quite a while, and then at the end the car simple won't move. You can feel the clutch engage, and you can feel it slipping. From your description it doesn't sound like a slipping clutch, but if it feels like the lever is engaging the gears, and the clutch weight feels the same, then it likely is the clutch - but more detailed description would be good. Actually - if you open the door while you engage the clutch you should hear it pretty good too. Rabin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted May 21, 2011 Report Share Posted May 21, 2011 Clutches don't usually go out that fast - especially Peugeot ones. They'll slip for quite a while, and then at the end the car simple won't move. You can feel the clutch engage, and you can feel it slipping. From your description it doesn't sound like a slipping clutch, but if it feels like the lever is engaging the gears, and the clutch weight feels the same, then it likely is the clutch - but more detailed description would be good. Actually - if you open the door while you engage the clutch you should hear it pretty good too. Rabin This car is the first manual transmission I've owned, so I wouldn't know if the clutch is slipping. I will say that since I got the car in February I haven't experienced it get any worse. I push down the clutch, shift gears and release, and I haven't noticed any deterioration in performance. Doesn't mean it wasn't deteriorating, just means I didn't notice it. My buddy Jason said that the clutch seemed loose when I first showed him the car, but he said that could just be a Peugeot thing and he wouldn't know. Turns out he may have been right. I had Progressive tow it to my work (it was too far away to tow it to my house), so I'll have a look at it, but I'm less than mechanically inclined so I'm not sure I'll be able to do anything about it. BTW this forum won't allow me to log in on my mobile phone (Safari browser), so I won't be able to give timely updates. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bean Posted May 22, 2011 Report Share Posted May 22, 2011 My buddy Jason said that the clutch seemed loose when I first showed him the car, but he said that could just be a Peugeot thing and he wouldn't know. Turns out he may have been right. Sorry - "loose" doesn't describe anything very well except... (insert bad joke here) Slipping clutch does exactly like it sounds - you engage a gear, and accelerate - but the motor revs and you can feel the engagement isn't right as the revs go up and the car doesn't speed up at the same rate. It's really obvious so it feels funny to explain it. You need to determine if the gear lever is engaging the gears properly, and you need to make sure the clutch is engaging and disengaging when you push the clutch pedal down. Easiest test might be to jack up the rear wheels off the ground and then see if they turn at all when running in gear. Like I said - it'd be really weird for a Peugeot clutch to go out like you described. Rabin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wabo505 Posted May 22, 2011 Report Share Posted May 22, 2011 perhaps it is a dislocation of the shift linkage ? Walter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted May 22, 2011 Report Share Posted May 22, 2011 perhaps it is a dislocation of the shift linkage ? Walter Maybe, but if it were, would I still hear the usual clanking underneath the gearbox? If it were the clutch that went, should I be able to force it into first gear, without the clutch, to start moving? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bean Posted May 22, 2011 Report Share Posted May 22, 2011 No - with the engine running you wouldn't be able to move the lever into gear at all, even if the clutch is gone. If you gave more details it'd be a lot easier to help out - even if you just answered the questions I posted. Rabin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrethx Posted May 23, 2011 Report Share Posted May 23, 2011 about 20 years ago, i owned a toyota celica with a 5-speed manual. i was working at a summer job in houston, tx (insanely hot in the summer) and i was driving my car somewhere, i forget where. i think i was in fourth gear on a back street doing about 45, when i heard a loud "bang" come from the rear end, under the passengers' seats. it sounded like someone slapped the underside of the car with a metal crowbar. the car coasted to a stop. after that, no matter what gear i shifted into, the car wouldn't move. i could rev the engine all day, and nothing. it turned out that my differential had given out. when the diff seized, the joint to the driveshaft gave out and the driveshaft had nowhere to go but up -- the banging noise i heard was the driveshaft impacting the underside of the car. i ended up putting a rebuilt differential in the car. in my case, the clutch was fine and the gearbox and shifter were fine, i just couldn't get any power to the rear wheels since the driveshaft was not connected. is it possible that dave could have had some failure in his drivetrain down the line? my differential failed catastrophically and loudly, but maybe a coupling or something gave out...just guessin'... andre Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bean Posted May 23, 2011 Report Share Posted May 23, 2011 Nope - the Peugeot has a splined shaft that runs rigidly between the transmission and the diff. It's inside a torque tube that bolts to the tranny and the diff at the other end - so the whole unit is one rigid unit. Brilliant design IMHO - so the only way this same deal could happen is if the splines stripped off one of the ends of the drive shaft. It's been known to happen in V6 cars - but never in an XN6 car that I know of. This did remind me of a situation in a Scirocco I was selling. I was leaving a drug store and merging with traffic when there was a terrible bang and the car just coasted to a stop with a terrible sound coming from the tranny when it tried to move. I thought the transmission was toast - so I got a replacement transmission and resealed it ready to swap in. Pulled the old tranny only to find the clutch plate had totally destroyed itself. The center section had ripped out of the center and the terrible noise was the center rotating around with what was left of the outter disk. I got warranty on the clutch as it wasn't very old, but swapped in the long ratio 020 tranny since I already had it cleaned and resealed. I also wasn't a huge fan of the short ratio box - lots of fun - but buzzy. It's hard to know without more details from Dave what it could be, but from what he's said so far it just doesn't make sense for either the clutch to be gone, or the linkage broken. Sounds like it's still shifting into gear fine, but the car isn't moving. That sounds like the clutch at fault - but not when it happens so suddenly - at least in my experience anyway. Rabin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted May 23, 2011 Report Share Posted May 23, 2011 First off, I'm not a car guy, I'm a musician I don't have the means to lift the car, as I don't have jackstands or any tools beyond screwdrivers and pliers, and the car's parked at work, 20 mi from home. The gears are not shifting. The car's kind of loud and it's hard to determine what you can hear with the engine running, but I do know that the wheels do not move in first or reverse when I apply gas (and the engine doesn't die like it should.) With the engine off (but the key in on position), I shifted both with the clutch pedal depressed and without to hear what was going on. Even without the clutch pedal, the shifter swings from 1-2-3-4-5-R without any resistance whatsoever. I hear metal moving around, but it's just tinking around and not catching anything, and I don't hear gears shifting into other gears. It's in perpetual neutral. Clutch pedal takes just as much pressure as it normally would to depress, but I didn't hear nor feel any sort of movement downstairs indicating the clutch was releasing or grabbing hold. I'm bummed out - I enjoy driving this car, but given my financial situation, my lack of automotive expertise and immediacy of the situation (as I depend on my automobile for work) I just can't afford to spend upwards of $400 ($164+s&h for clutch kit, $200+ for labor) to get an $850 car back into $850 shape - therefore I'm gonna have to throw in the towel and offer it up as a parts car (Rob, since your car is so similar and you're gonna be in SD this autumn anyway, you get first dibs!) I'd rather give it up to one of you guys, who would either breathe life back into it or use it to keep your current beasts alive, than send it to a scrap yard. Since this is the only thing that's terribly wrong with it - everything else wrong with it is cosmetic - it wouldn't take much with the funds and skill set, but I know when I'm out of my league. :/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrethx Posted May 23, 2011 Report Share Posted May 23, 2011 that sucks, dave, i'm sorry to hear it. i'd offer a cheery "hang in there," but you need transportation for your work so hanging in there isn't so much of an option. the bad news is, it might take a while to find the right buyer. not terribly long, but longer than if you were selling, say, a honda accord. you might reach a broader crowd if you listed the car on peugeot-l (a slightly different subset of US/canadian peugeot owners) or took out an ad on craigslist. i'm sure no one on this forum wants to see (what appears to be) a fixable 505 parted out, but it'd be even worse to see it sit somewhere for years, falling further into disrepair. for my own part, i'd love a parts car but have nowhere to keep one... the one suggestion i would like to give you is, learn how to fix cars -- whether or not you end up keeping this particular car. in the short term, as a person who has a job driving, any sub $5k car you get is going to need work from time to time, so it would help you stay on the road at a lower cost. long term, as a person who likes interesting cars, it will help you maintain your rides and even appreciate them on a deeper level. there's a lot you can do to educate yourself -- keep reading this forum and other car forums, check out car repair manuals from the library, read the auto repair section of popular mechanics (also available at the library), heck -- i've even learned a bit about car repair looking through the automotive tool sections of pep boys, autozone, sears, etc. car repair is a popular hobby, so there are lots of resources that you can tap into. get the best tools you can afford and get greasy... andre PS - you mentioned using safari on your phone so you must have an iphone. IP Board, the publishers of the software that this forum runs on, make an iphone app that you can use to access this forum (and other forums that use IP Board, like aussiefrogs). search for IPB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
norcal505 Posted May 23, 2011 Report Share Posted May 23, 2011 Hang in there brah, I've had some tranny problems on my ba7/5 since junior year in high school. Pinging noises when changing gears, "a looseness" in the gear stick (haha Rabin ), and this year, it started popping out of First and Third gear by itself. Hopefully you find out what the problem is, so I can fix mine too! Oh and got your e-mail. Please fix this thing and keep it running. We need more Peugeot enthusiasts around here! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N9TE Posted May 23, 2011 Report Share Posted May 23, 2011 Dave, Crawl under the car from the driver's side. See if you can jack it up a few inches so you can really get under there. Look for a control rod that's disconnected. That's what it sounds like. If that's it, you can just pop it back on to get it home. Then you can order one up and have it replaced by a trusted tranny shop. Easy job. It'll look something like this: The big end is usually what disconnects. It's about six inches forward of the door lock (where you'd go underneath the car). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bean Posted May 24, 2011 Report Share Posted May 24, 2011 Yup - 100 to 1 it's the linkage... Get under the car - even if you can just get either side of the car up on a side walk, then crawl under it. Plastic zip ties work goog for a temp fix. This also makes sense if the shifter was loose / sloppy to begin with. It usually falls off the shifter ball, so it just needs to get popped back on and zip tied. With the rod that Koll showed above disconnected - it can't go into any gear and it'll just flop around. With good shift linkages - the shifter is very tight and precise. Rabin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bean Posted May 24, 2011 Report Share Posted May 24, 2011 BTW - with reference to learning how to fix your: You really can't / shouldn't own a Peugeot if you don't have the means to pay someone to fix it, or if you aren't willing to learn to fix it yourself. Tools are FAR cheaper than shop labour, and the cars are dead simple to work on. The short term benefit is of course keeping the car running cheap. The long term benefit can be quite a bit more rewarding. I personally can link my professional career back to opportunities that were opened to me because I knew how to wrench on cars. Skills learned troubleshooting stuff on my Peugeot are the same problem solving skills needed in any sort of technical job - especially involving computers. So while you might be a musician; if you're smart, and you have good common sense you can easily learn the skills to fix your own car. Wanting to is the key though - so if there's no interest then I'd suggest that when you fix the car you should look at selling it and getting cheap beater that you can get it fixed anywhere by anybody. No disrespect intended - just being straight with you. Rabin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
norcal505 Posted May 24, 2011 Report Share Posted May 24, 2011 BTW - with reference to learning how to fix your: You really can't / shouldn't own a Peugeot if you don't have the means to pay someone to fix it, or if you aren't willing to learn to fix it yourself. Tools are FAR cheaper than shop labour, and the cars are dead simple to work on. The short term benefit is of course keeping the car running cheap. The long term benefit can be quite a bit more rewarding. I personally can link my professional career back to opportunities that were opened to me because I knew how to wrench on cars. Skills learned troubleshooting stuff on my Peugeot are the same problem solving skills needed in any sort of technical job - especially involving computers. So while you might be a musician; if you're smart, and you have good common sense you can easily learn the skills to fix your own car. Wanting to is the key though - so if there's no interest then I'd suggest that when you fix the car you should look at selling it and getting cheap beater that you can get it fixed anywhere by anybody. No disrespect intended - just being straight with you. Rabin +12345 to what Rabin said. I used to be hands-off myself, but you'll learn that most Peugeot mechanics love to milk their customers, and there aren't many of them. Plus, working on your car is fun as hell. Here's some proof (OT I know) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrethx Posted May 25, 2011 Report Share Posted May 25, 2011 hey dave, any update? keen to see how this one turns out... now that we've scolded dave and almost sold his car out from under him, i hope he hasn't abandoned the forum. most of the time, if i don't have anything constructive to add, i keep my mouth shut, i guess this wasn't one of those times.... andre Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted May 26, 2011 Report Share Posted May 26, 2011 Nah, I'm around. I'm waiting to borrow Jason and his jackstands. I found the shift linkage and yeah, you guys were right - it looks like it's popped right off on the big end up top. Couldn't get under the car enough to try to pop it back on, and I'm waiting to borrow Jason and his jackstands for a trip to Mira Mesa, likely to happen tomorrow. I also tried to take a picture with the cell phone but I didn't have enough light. It's a well-needed schooling that's for sure. This car has taught me to be a more hands-on owner; I felt quite accomplished after taking to the air filter and cleaning that puppy out, and changing the corroded hose between the air intake and the MAP sensor - I'll get there, slowly but surely. Growing pains I'll update for sure - even if I can at least get it home, where I know the kids who will vandalize it How much would a replacement shift linkage cost? (Can't imagine the labor would be too costly, seems like a pop-off-and-pop-on sort of deal.) A cursory search turned up precious little. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bean Posted May 26, 2011 Report Share Posted May 26, 2011 Ironically - you can also get at the top of the shift linkage from inside the car. Remove the console, and there's a cover with usually phillips screws holding on the cover on the tranny tunnel. Take it off and you should see a good part of the shift linkage. Easier of course from the bottom - but if you can't reach it well then you can do it from the top. There's also a bushing on the shifter pivot that's worth doing as well if the shifter feels sloppy. You did say you had some screw drivers after all. Good luck with getting it back together - it certainly isn't worth the cash and the hassles to get get someone else to do it. If you have to though - it should be one of the cheaper ones to pay someone to do. Rabin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrethx Posted June 16, 2011 Report Share Posted June 16, 2011 hey dave, how did things turn out? did you get your car taken car of? i saw this link recently and thought of this thread -- it's a writeup by a french 505 owner who got tired of his linkage popping off, and fabricated a solution. as usual, use your favorite translator or just look at the (self-explanatory) pics...boite de vitesse = box of speed, i.e. gearbox... andré Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohms Posted June 16, 2011 Report Share Posted June 16, 2011 hey dave, how did things turn out? did you get your car taken car of? i saw this link recently and thought of this thread -- it's a writeup by a french 505 owner who got tired of his linkage popping off, and fabricated a solution. as usual, use your favorite translator or just look at the (self-explanatory) pics...boite de vitesse = box of speed, i.e. gearbox... andré "box of speed." I like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bryancohnracing Posted June 17, 2011 Report Share Posted June 17, 2011 I've thought of doing something similar myself. Not terribly difficult, all the parts are available over the counter. As I have an account at Wicks Aircraft I'd probably buy aircraft grade parts to do it. I've already built a piece that replaces the rubber bushing up top that the linkage slides in, using a rod end. The linkage in my 505 is much firmer than the old worn out rubber piece. I need to upload a pic of that thing...but need to take one first. Documenting what I do is my biggest failing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 13, 2011 Report Share Posted August 13, 2011 Well, the good news is that it wasn't the clutch or the shift linkage. In July, a friend of a friend who works at an auto shop said the issue's in the gears, and that I ought to be looking for a transmission. Given what I paid for the car not so very long ago, that wasn't really in the cards. Ecology picked it up today and gave me $425. It's in Chula Vista. Thanks for the help, everybody. Great crowd here, wish my time as a member wasn't so fleeting. Cheers, Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrethx Posted August 14, 2011 Report Share Posted August 14, 2011 very sorry to hear that, dave. it's sad when a peugeot goes to that great pick-n-pull in the sky, even worse when an owner disappears from the forum. i understand the peugeot bug is hard to get rid of, so hopefully you'll be back in the future. btw, if you have the vin, color, drivetrain, etc. info, could you pm it to me or koll (n9te)? we have talked about setting up a 505 registry at some point, and it'd be nice to have a record of the car for posterity... all the best, andré Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.