405 GLX TD gear selector fault

[serpent]

Hi all

I apologise if this is the five hundredth time this has been asked and everyone rolls their eyes but I'd appreciate some advice/opinions

I am currently looking after a 405 GLX TD Estate. The owner has passed away and a relative is due to come down and take the car away in a few weeks. Due to the owner's illness it hasn't had a great deal of use.

I have driven it around for half an hour once per week with no bother at all. The car has had no transmission problems before.

On the last trip though the following happened. I began driving as normal, everything felt fine.
Five or ten minutes down the road the gear lever felt a tiny bit loose and travelled a tiny bit further that normal when using 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th.

However, when I came to a bit of road where I could use 5th I tried to move the gearstick over accordingly but it just waggled uselessly and 5th would not engage.

I went straight back at that point but it feels like reverse will not engage either.
Really odd I thought as it reversed out of the driveway just fine to begin with.

So that's it really, anything on the drivers side of the gear gate is loose and won't engage. I'm hoping this is just a broken spring on the gear lever or something like that - given the low value of the car I'm hoping it is some thing cheap and simple!

Any ideas or opinions welcome and thanks in advance!

[504gld]

Welcome to the world of Peugeot gear linkages! I don't know for use but something tells me these have plastic compoents that wear, or pop off! It might be worth safely jacking up the car and examining the linkage and its travel with the aid of an assitant to move the gear stick.

[Admin]

Yup, that'll be the gear linkage. Luckily it should all pop back together unless the ball and socket joint is plastic and has snapped, but it shouldn't be too expensive.

[serpent]

Thanks guys, that's quite encouraging! So is this a jack-up job or can I get to the linkage from inside by pulling the trim off?

[504V6Ti]

It's happened to me on the 504. The plastic joint of the top ball had disintegrated and the gear selection linkage fell off. That left me with only 3rd and 4th, having completely lost the 1st/2nd and 5th/Reverse. The new linkage was only a few pounds so go straight to Peugeot and order your replacement part.

Fitting the new linkage should not be too difficult. On the 504, I could have done it from underneath with the car on the jack but would have needed smaller hands. So I ended up the complicated route, i.e. removal of the centre console, removal of the cache above the gearbox and direct access from above through the floor to clip the linkage back on the gearbox.

Hopefully, you have not lost your old linkage because you will need to adjust the new one to the same length. In my case this was done by screwing/unscrewing the bottom part from the top. Otherwise, you may encounter problems when changing gears, like crunching noise or gears difficult to engage.

[serpent]

Sounds good so far, there's not much room on the drive so I'll probably have to go in from inside.

Thank you all for your excellent and quick responses

[Donaldiesel]

Hi Serpent,
There is probably a bell crank on the subframe cross member or on the steering rack. This controls forward/backward gear selection - 1st,3rd,5th/2nd,4th,reverse. Check the pivot bolt. The plastic bushes wear or the bolt may come out, althouth if that happened you probably wont be able to engage any gear. You may be able to get to the crank from under the bonnet, down behind the engine near the exhaust. There is also a ball joint held in engagement by a clip which controls the sideways gear selection.1st2nd/3rd4th/5threverse. (This works a plunger on the gearbox which moves in & out to line up the different selector groups inside). I reckon your ball joint clip has broken or fallen out.
Good luck,
Donaldiesel