Simon's new Xantia V6 and Leaf blog

[RichardW]

It's had it anyway, and needs to come out!

Always best to replace the driveshaft seals when the shafts are taken out, unless you're very careful it's easy to snag the seal when the shaft is pulled out, then it will leak. These should be easily available from Nissan. Looks like here: https://www.autofixa.com/3834231X00/p0/ They also appear to list a full box, at a shade over £3.5k https://www.autofixa.com/320103NA0A/p0/

[RichardW]

It appears to have an intermediate bearing flange on the drivers side driveshaft - I assume this is bolted onto the gearbox and probably has to be detached to pull the drivers side driveshaft out?

In your earlier video on the tear down you can see it at about 18 mins, not too dissimilar to the later PSA ones, bearing held in by a retaining plate. The housing it is in appears to need to be removed after that as it is bolted to the gearbox and obscures some of the gearbox retaining bolts.

The motor weighs 58Kg according to that report but I haven't been able to find a weight for the gearbox yet. How heavy it is affects how easy it is to do the job with manual tools of course...

When he lifts the box off in the vid at about 20 mins, it doesn't look overly heavy, 20-25kg maybe.

[Mandrake]

It's had it anyway, and needs to come out!

Indeed, but I haven't decided who is going to do the repair yet. If I do still send it down to Cleevely the car is still in one piece at the moment and can drive straight onto a trailer with all its bits intact, not the case if I start stripping the gearbox out, then it would be a pile of disassembled parts! I would only remove the gearbox if I'm committing to try to replace it myself.

Always best to replace the driveshaft seals when the shafts are taken out, unless you're very careful it's easy to snag the seal when the shaft is pulled out, then it will leak. These should be easily available from Nissan. Looks like here: https://www.autofixa.com/3834231X00/p0/

Ouch £20 each for a seal? I suppose they should be replaced though.

They also appear to list a full box, at a shade over £3.5k https://www.autofixa.com/320103NA0A/p0/

Ah well spotted - "Item location: Nissan UK warehouse" I presume means this is a new gearbox and therefore the new price is £3,544 inc VAT - that is what I was trying to find out earlier from Nissan to judge the cost/risk ratio of taking a chance on a 2nd hand box. At £870 including delivery that's 1/4 the price going second hand.

I think I might have found the weight of the box - this video measures the combined weight of of the gearbox and motor at 180lb or around 82Kg:



The previous link stated the motor alone weighs 58Kg so if both those figures are accurate the gearbox must only weigh 24Kg - about the same as Joshua, who I can still lift and carry around.

Does that seem plausible ? In this most recent video the motor does seem to dwarf the gearbox so maybe it is plausible that the gearbox weighs 24Kg and the motor weighs 58Kg.

24Kg is in the "balance it on a jack for removal territory", although the motor also has to be supported by something if the gearbox is removed as two of the engine mounts connect to it.

Another thing I notice in that video is the bracket for the drivers side driveshaft intermediate bearing appears to bolt onto the rear of the motor not the gearbox housing and in that video the bracket is still there while the driveshafts are removed - so it looks like it may be possible to withdraw the driveshafts leaving the bracket on the motor although not sure if it would need to be removed to reach the bolts on the gearbox.

[DHallworth]

Amazingly, for a 6 speed auto box for a C5/C6, Citroen want £13k!! I looked thinking about a new one rather then a refurb for my C6 last year.

£800 doesn’t seem bad though, just a shame it’s such a short warranty.

David.

[Mandrake]

Amazingly, for a 6 speed auto box for a C5/C6, Citroen want £13k!! I looked thinking about a new one rather then a refurb for my C6 last year.

Ouch! ICE Auto boxes are a complex work of exquisite engineering inside, unfortunately that means expensive and they are prone to failure by their nature. While I'm of course very annoyed and disappointed with the failure of the box in the Leaf, after looking at the tear down videos its hard to argue that an EV gearbox isn't a lot simpler and in theory more reliable. I suspect this is a manufacturing defect rather than wear or tear and as such bad luck.

£800 doesn’t seem bad though, just a shame it’s such a short warranty.

Do you mean the warranty on the 2nd hand box or the original 3 year warranty on the car ?

One of the £800 boxes is 2 months and the other one which I haven't phoned about yet is 6 months, but I'd be wanting to talk to them first to discuss the provenance of the car it came out of (license plate number, age/mileage, reason for write off etc) before deciding whether to go with that one or not.

Any warranty is more than the expired warranty that the factory gearbox had I suppose, and short warranties like these are really only to catch problems that might already be present in the box when you buy it, not to try to cover faults that may occur years down the line.

I have to weigh up a few months warranty for £800 vs a couple of years warranty for £3500 for new - looking at it that way even if you had one failure after a year or so and had to replace it a second time you'd still be financially far better off, so I think I'll just take the punt as I really need the car back on the road.

[RichardW]

I can pick up a 5 spd BE3 box, probably weighs around 40-45kg, so 24kg for the Leaf box looks about right - and right on my earlier estimate. You could probably just lift it off and out from underneath, if you watch Kevin Williams Clutch videos I posted about, you will see he does this with all the boxes - god knows how!! However, there is an eye on the top of the box, I would be tempted to rig up a 4x2 across the engine bay and rope the box up to that to hold it whilst you get it off the input shaft, and then you can lower it out at your leisure.

In the tear down video at 18 mins when he removes the driveshaft bearing bracket, it is bolted into the gearbox, and clearly obstructs the box to motor mounting bolts, so will have to come off.

Given that box failure at low mileage seems vanishingly rare, and you have been exceptionally unlucky, a 2nd hand box at similar mileage seems a pretty safe bet for 1/4 the price!

[NewcastleFalcon]

Number noticing claiming the 24,000th view of your blog Simon. Its certainly taken some interesting turns since view number 1.

Sounds promising and good luck with whatever you decide to do. Cant imagine you'll get too much more warranty or assurance from the Cheltenham outfit, and imagine the pain in the neck of activating any warranty issues anyway with trips down to Gloucestershire.

That bracket with the intermediate support for the driveshaft looks a bit of a potential failure/rubbing point not sure if there is some kind of bearing in that, maybe some of the other bits and pieces can be thrown into the deal for the gearbox, if they are all coming from a decent car. Maybe driveshafts on some sale or return basis should you need them, if they do turn out to be part of the problem.

Regards Neil

[Mandrake]

I can pick up a 5 spd BE3 box, probably weighs around 40-45kg, so 24kg for the Leaf box looks about right - and right on my earlier estimate. You could probably just lift it off and out from underneath, if you watch Kevin Williams Clutch videos I posted about, you will see he does this with all the boxes - god knows how!! However, there is an eye on the top of the box, I would be tempted to rig up a 4x2 across the engine bay and rope the box up to that to hold it whilst you get it off the input shaft, and then you can lower it out at your leisure.

Yes it would be nice to have something to lift it down with - I just recently dismantled and binned a metal swing set which I could have cut the legs down on to make a free standing lifting bracket that could have supported 24Kg.

One thing we're forgetting though is the motor assembly has to be propped up with something at the same time - perhaps an axle stand from below although I'm not sure where the centre of gravity would be relative to the motor and one remaining engine mount in that scenario or whether it could only be supported from above. The remaining stack is quite heavy including the motor, charger and inverter, somewhere on the order of 140Kg.

In the tear down video at 18 mins when he removes the driveshaft bearing bracket, it is bolted into the gearbox, and clearly obstructs the box to motor mounting bolts, so will have to come off.

There's a good pic here which confirms what you say - the driveshaft intermediate bearing bracket bolts between the gearbox and motor:

Given that box failure at low mileage seems vanishingly rare, and you have been exceptionally unlucky, a 2nd hand box at similar mileage seems a pretty safe bet for 1/4 the price!

At the end of the day £3500 + labour for a new gearbox is far too expensive, so I'm just going to have to take a punt on a 2nd hand box whether I fit it or get someone else to.

[Mandrake]

Phoned about the 2nd box in Southampton - VIN number known but not license plate so I can't look up the car myself.

Says it is from a 2016 30kWh Leaf same as mine - but has done 124,000 miles!! Got to be an ex-Taxi surely. At least they were honest about the mileage.

So that's a pass. Looks like the first one is my best bet.

[Mandrake]

Went back to the first seller and said I was interested but still had a slight hesitation due to not knowing the mileage of the car. They went out to the car in the yard and managed to get it to turn on and sent me a video showing the mileage of the car as 9,488.... assuming its legit and that was the car the gearbox came from you can't do better than that 2nd hand and it's well short of the 35k my car has done let alone the 140k the other gearbox on offer has done!

So I've ordered it for £870 including vat and delivery and expect it to arrive Monday/Tuesday. Once I have it in hand and have looked it over its just a matter of deciding whether I want to wait for Cleevely to get through their backlog, look elsewhere a bit closer to home or even attempt it myself, although I'm reluctant to do that to be honest as I don't really have the equipment I need to do the lifting and manoeuvring easily and I'm worried I'd end up biting off more than I can chew and get stuck with a disassembled car on the driveway.

[Mandrake]

Thinking out aloud here about how this job might be done safely (yet cheaply) on a driveway and was thinking of something like this chain hoist:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/12023317798?iid=154319612866

There is an eye on the top of the gearbox that I could hook onto (and it only weighs 24Kg) so all I need is a frame above the car to hang this chain lift from - I have lots of 2 by 4 in the garage that I could build a large saw horse shaped stand that would pass a beam above motor bay with Y shaped legs on either side of the car.

With the car up in the air on stands (and driveshafts already removed etc) I could hook the lift to the gearbox, loosen the engine mount under the 12v battery (passenger side) to lift the gearbox side of the drivetrain up a bit, then get an axle stand with wood block positioned under the motor then lower the assembly down so the axle stand is supporting the motor. I should then be able to unbolt the rear and left and side engine mount and start to remove the gearbox.

Once the gearbox is free (but hanging from the chain) I can just lower it down onto a piece of plywood on the ground and drag it out from under the car.

Seems like a plan ? Although it's not heavy enough to need a ratchet I like the idea of the ratchet for controllability so that the lift will stay in position supporting the gearbox at any required position while trying to get it on and off without needing someone just to control the lift. In theory the job could be done by one person although two would certainly be easier.

[mickthemaverick]

My only thought there Simon is that someone may be able to loan you an engine hoist. You are welcome to borrow mine which may not be much help as it is in Hertfordshire but someone in your area may have one.

[Mandrake]

My only thought there Simon is that someone may be able to loan you an engine hoist. You are welcome to borrow mine which may not be much help as it is in Hertfordshire but someone in your area may have one.

An engine lift would probably do the job however if it's the wheeled kind that will have legs and wheels under the engine bay below the lift point it would prevent me lying underneath where I need free access to remove/fit all kinds of bolts.

The idea of the sawhorse configuration is that it would have the support legs to the sides of the car and not intrude on access to the front or underneath the car at all.

Also the weight I'm lifting is very light - it's more about controlling it easily and making it safe, so a hydraulic wheeled engine lift is a bit overkill to be honest.

[mickthemaverick]

I realise that it may be overkill from a load point of view, however if I am working on front wheel drive motors I often remove the bonnet and then bring my hoist in from one side, usually the one opposite to where I need to work, then slide under from the other side for spannering etc. The legs are never a problem as one tends to be under the front bumper and the other under the bulkhead. That was the setup I had in mind when I first suggested removing the box with the main assembly still in situ.

[Mandrake]

I see what you mean. I'm trying to avoid removing the bonnet though as I'd be working outdoors and thus subject to rain showers where I'd want to close the bonnet again at short notice.

Unfortunately I don't really have room to the sides of the driveway to wheel in an engine lift from the side, it would have to be from the front. I'm also not trying to lift the gearbox out the top - I don't think that's possible anyway, I'd simply be lowering it a couple of feet to some plywood on the ground to slide it out the bottom.

When the replacement gearbox arrives I'll be able to measure it and get a better idea how high the car would need to be for the gearbox to come out the bottom. Lowering it from above would let me have the car a lot lower (possibly normal ramp height) than if I was trying to lower it from underneath. From what I can see the gearbox lies on its "side" so is not very high when oriented to fit in the car.