Simon's new Xantia V6 and Leaf blog

[Mandrake]

If it is a taper-bearing problem, the end-float/bearing loading must be set up really accurately (can be fractions of a 'thou)
for the assembly not to float or suffer premature wear. It's not usually just a matter of dropping another bearing in.

Yes the thought did occur to me - if I'm going to get the box rebuilt I'll be taking it to a specialist after it is removed, I won't crack it open myself and interfere with it.

Wonder whether the lubrication of the 'box (splash/pump/the oil type itself) was got right by Nissan from the off. Wouldn't be a first time that a gearbox lubrication had needed rethinking.

Despite essentially being a manual gearbox (no oil pumps, hydraulics etc, just oil thrown up inside the box by the differential gear) it uses thin ATF fluid rather than what you'd normally find in a manual gearbox. This seems to be the case across all EV's that I'm familiar with including the Ion. Perhaps a mistake?

[Mandrake]

Obviously the job will have to be done from underneath but having removed the outer cover you should be able to diagnose the actual problem and then go from there. Unless of course there just isn't room due to the chassis or something preventing access from that direction.

I would think this screenshot from a fluid change video would look hopeful from a "remove the box only" point of view unless some of the retaining bolts are at the top and inaccessible without removing the gubbins above.

Screenshot


Regards Neil

Unfortunately remove the box only isn't possible - it's not only bolted sideways to the motor, the drive inverter unit which sits above and straddles both motor and gearbox bolts down into both of them - so the drive inverter and onboard charger have to be removed before the motor and gearbox can be separated.

Of course the NISSAN official guidance envisages an altogether more awful set of procedures to remove the "gearbox".
Very Haynes-esque reading and very very off-putting requiring lets say dismantling of everything. So to remove the gearbox their method is to in old fashioned language, drop the subframe with everything attached (car up on a lift subframe dropped onto heavy duty jacking platform and lowered to ground level).

Is it too early to say surely that has to be a load of unnecessary work, and well worthy of an MBE if the home mechanic could ever follow all of those steps.

The Mick method surely has to work, and if it doesnt I would abandon all ideas of taking the engine out yourself.
Electron garage may well be your best choice.

I may have got it all wrong but this is what I gleaned from the "official instructions"

Regards Neil

That's really disappointing and lazy of them if their recommended method is drop the drivetrain and sub chassis through the bottom. Definitely not feasible on a driveway.

To me it looks like it should be possible to remove the onboard charger from the top in-situ, which then gives a lot more room to work and reduces the footprint significantly as it overhangs the units below. It's also possible to remove the plastic scuttle (it's not glued down) and in fact even the central part of the scuttle trough seems to be removable with a few bolts leaving only the windscreen glass in the way.

If you could get the onboard charger out the top then maybe you could also remove the inverter and detach the heat pump assembly from the side of that, (although it's a bit tight on the offside side of the motor bay) and once those are out the motor bay is half empty and you have easy access to the engine mounts of which there are three - two at the front, one on each side and one in the middle at the back.

Here's a few photos I took with some of the trim off for some perspective:

I think it should also be possible to remove the driveshafts (after draining the gearbox of course) and then bolt the hubs back in place and put the wheels back on for the remainder of the job - this makes the car a bit easier to support during the work - for example I could put blocks or ramps under the wheels to get a bit more height.

My worry is if I start taking the stack apart top down I may run into fixings that I can't reach or see even when I've got Benjamins tear down video to refer to, and then have to put it all back together again.

[mickthemaverick]

Having read everyone's contributions and your detailed responses Simon I have to admit that taking the car to a garage may well be the best option. It does seem that there are hurdles in every direction for the DIY job and taking into account the risk of additional unforeseen issues arising as you go it may well be the best thing to offload that responsibility to a specialist.

However, despite the rather poor reputation of Nissan Customer Services I would raise the issue with them under the "fit for purpose" consumer legislation. They cannot argue that a serious malfunction of this nature is acceptable after the mileage the car has done. Obviously you will have a fight on your hands but you may find that they prefer to repair the car rather than explain themselves in the courts. Nothing to lose and you may come out on top!!

[white exec]

I think that's good advice. Have some documented examples of other owners with the same issue handy, or gently drop into conversation: "I understand that other...".
Might deter them from trying to treat you as a lone case.
If no joy at dealer level, write to Nissan-Renault HQ, with copy to the dealer.

[RichardW]

My thought (hope?) was that the box would come out with the motor in situ, but the quote for 675 to do it suggests not...

[NewcastleFalcon]

The saga of our friend "Fancy a BEV mate" George, and his Friday afternoon Nissan Leaf, and his legal action, is perhaps a cautionary tale. Determined not to let Nissan get away with it, but at considerable personal anxiety and stress. Didn't see any evidence of a conclusion to it either, he stopped posting on his youtube channel 12 months ago.

My recommendation would be to get it fixed as straight forwardly and as rapidly as you can, and get back to normal motoring.

If at that stage you have renewed confidence in it, keep it , or if not trade it in for something else. On the finance side last time I looked the Scottish Govt were being pretty generous with Interest free loans for both new and second hand EV's to help with any replacement. Up to £20,000 for used eV's if its still in place.

https://www.energylivenews.com/2020/09/ ... -hand-evs/

Regards Neil

[Mandrake]

My thought (hope?) was that the box would come out with the motor in situ, but the quote for 675 to do it suggests not...

Nope, definitely won't from what I can see. The onboard charger has to be removed from the top of the stack, then the drive inverter, then the motor and gearbox can be separated.

The unknown is whether taking those top two layers of the stack off in-situ in the car is possible or whether it's too difficult or impossible in which case the whole stack has to come out first and then be dismantled on a bench as in the video - and then it's unclear whether it can be lifted through the top or only dropped through the bottom.

Still trying to find an answer to these questions without much luck so far as there are few documented cases of people having to remove the drivetrain for any reason.

Despite my unlucky experience drivetrain faults (not counting the driveshaft click issue with the spline in the hub, which is just an irritation and not a failure) with the Leaf seem to be extremely rare. I can only find 2-3 cases reported on youtube and forums.

[NewcastleFalcon]

Just out of interest what would a Dealer give you as a trade in on your current vehicle with its obvious "manufacturer fault" if you presented it to them as is.

Edinburgh Nissan Dealer here with a June 2017, 30 kWh Acenta in Red for £11,995 sticker price. What deal could be struck for a replacement with the backing of the 0% finance, and let them sort the fix out for your trade in and sell it on? They actually mention the 0% EST finance as a special offer on the listing.

No hands getting dirty, you get a replacement lump of metal on wheels relatively quickly, and the finance arrangements may even stack up as being just as economical or expensive as getting yours fixed.

https://usedcars.nissan.co.uk/en/vehicl ... Offer#tabs



Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

bit of footage of removing a charger/inverter/motor/gearbox from a Nissan Leaf as part of a conversion project for a Mazda RX8

Note on this one he calls the charger the inverter....corrected on screen



REgards Neil

[Mandrake]

Reply back from Alpine Transmissions:

"Hi, sorry we are not equipped for this vehicle, there is no parts available for this.
Regards Allan"

If they're not able to get parts for it then I suspect no-one else is either. It wouldn't surprise me if Nissan did not make parts available for these boxes and only sell them as a whole unit.

So a second hand gearbox seems to be the only real option! (or pay through the nose for new... I've emailed Nissan last week without response so far but haven't had the courage yet to chase them up by phone to get a quote for them to fit a new box to weigh up against the cost I'm being quoted for a second hand one...)

If I can't get the box rebuilt by a specialist there's really no point me attempting to remove it myself as I'd then just be fitting an unknown condition second hand box with no comeback if there is an issue with it, after going to all the hassle of re-gassing the heat pump etc etc... so my options seem to be reduced to pay Nissan through the nose to fit a new box or go with the Electron Garage quote of £675 + the cost of a second hand gearbox and trailering to Glenrothes. (I can drive it home again) The car is worth far too much to simply scrap or trade in as faulty, it has to be fixed.

[Mandrake]

As if they have burning ears, a response from Nissan:

"Good Morning,

To confirm the fault we would need to investigate the noise and confirm what the issue is before we could quote any prices for repairs.

The warranty for the transmission is 3 years or 90000 miles.

Once we establish the issue we could contact Nissan U.K. to see what contribution to any repairs we could get, as long as you have full history."

So very non-committal. I've replied again to ask them to quote on the assumption of gearbox replacement so I can compare it to other options open to me.

[Mandrake]

bit of footage of removing a charger/inverter/motor/gearbox from a Nissan Leaf as part of a conversion project for a Mazda RX8

Yeah I've seen that video - quite hard to watch as the guy didn't have a clue and really destroyed it in the process. (Poor driveshafts )

[NewcastleFalcon]

Largely Academic, but I see nothing that would prevent removing the gearbox in situ following through that strip down video. After removing driveshafts, and the right hand and rear motor/gearbox mounting, together with the driveshaft support mounting you end up with a position where all 6 gearbox to motor joining bolts are exposed, 3 from behind in the driveshaft area, and three at the front connecting the gearbox to the motor. As far as I can see there are no top bolts joining the gearbox to the inverter. Yes there are bolts joining the motor to the inverter ie those three at the top moulding on the motor, but that piece is not connected to the gearbox whose mounting bolts to the motor are all side on.

Like I say academic for you Simon, and maybe no-one has tried it, but should a gearbox be required to be removed and replaced I can't see how it could not be removed from the side. Don't think the motor shaft protrudes so much that the box couldn't be withdrawn sideways due to lack of space. May be the crux is that there wouldn't be enough space to get it out from underneath, even if it proves perfectly possible to detach it from the motor.

Here's the pics from the video. No bolts on the top of the box as far as I can see, all 6 side on and the box mounts onto a flat surface on the motor casing.

What do you think?

Regards Neil

[Mandrake]

Largely Academic, but I see nothing that would prevent removing the gearbox in situ following through that strip down video. After removing driveshafts, and the right hand and rear motor/gearbox mounting, together with the driveshaft support mounting you end up with a position where all 6 gearbox to motor joining bolts are exposed, 3 from behind in the driveshaft area, and three at the front connecting the gearbox to the motor. As far as I can see there are no top bolts joining the gearbox to the inverter. Yes there are bolts joining the motor to the inverter ie those three at the top moulding on the motor, but that piece is not connected to the gearbox whose mounting bolts to the motor are all side on.

Turns out you're mostly right. The inverter does bolt onto both the motor and gearbox thus bridging them together, (have a look on your own car on the corner nearest the 12v battery and you'll see some upside down bolts) however as far as I can see the bolts between gearbox and inverter (which face upwards) are accessible in the car. So you could remove those bolts then the ones between the gearbox and motor to extract the gearbox through the opening in the bottom subframe as the gearbox is quite small.

In the background for the last few days I've been in email correspondence with Matt from Cleevely Electric Vehicles in Cheltenham, he quoted a dramatically lower labour cost than Electron Garage (£150+vat) and when I queried this when the whole stack would have to be removed, A/C re-gassed etc he confirmed that no, you can actually remove the gearbox through the bottom by itself without removing the rest of the motor stack - as long as the motor etc is supported to make up for the missing engine mount that normally attaches to the gearbox.

In fact he said it was a relatively quick job to do with the right equipment, and doesn't require disconnection of any HV cables, coolant drain, A/C regas etc.. it would just require the driveshafts out and gearbox drained and new one refilled afterwards of course. So knowing now that it's possible to drop the gearbox out the bottom by itself (albeit probably only if you have a hoist available, which they do and I don't) cheers me up a lot.

He also seemed to think it would be relatively easy to source a good 2nd hand gearbox although hasn't suggested a price at this point in time. I've seen wildly varying prices online for gearboxes when I looked but working in the trade he may have other sources of course or may already have a parts car on hand or know someone who does.

Cheltenham is a long way away of course but they come highly recommended by many people I've talked to who have used them. If I recall right it cost £300 to ship the Leaf up from Lyford and collect the Ion for trade in, so shipping it is not the end of the world if the repair gets done well by someone who knows what they are doing and charges a reasonable price.

So at this point I've decided I'm not going to attempt the work myself on a driveway and have asked Matt to see if he can source a gearbox and quote on the door to door price of getting the car fixed. Lets hope the quote for the gearbox itself isn't too eye watering as the labour and shipping should be reasonable.

One deciding factor in giving up on doing it myself apart from already being over burdened is a short notice visit from my mum in New Zealand who is arriving on the 9th for an undecided amount of time and only told me this on Sunday after she'd already booked the tickets!

[myglaren]

It all comes at once Simon.
Hope the Cheltenham option works out for you.