Hi,

Im fairly new around these shores but been lurking for a while and find the forums very informative and helpful, so thanks for being here........

Right with all the formalities out of the way I have a problem, or should I say my girlfriends car has a problem. The other day travelling back from from her brothers wedding suddenly out of nowhere it starts whining (the car not her) and this happens when she put it into 5th gear and accelerates, gradually increasing in noise the longer she accelerated.

She phoned many garages yesterday to be told that she would need a new Gearbox, with prices ranging from just over £600 to around £450. Anyway to my dismay at having to fork out such an amount of money I thought I would do some research on the net and especially here. To cut a long story short Im 99.9% sure that its the good old 5th gear nut/s that have come loose and need replacing. So after I told her this she phones half a dozen places back and was told that they would not take a gear box apart and only replaced them, some got quite frosty with her for suggesting such a thing (which I was rather by).

Now I appreciate that they cannot just take our/her word for it (or can they?:confused:) but knowing that we could save a fortune by just replacing the nuts rather than replacing the whole gearbox I have no idea how to go about getting it resolved and fixed? For starters it is out of the question that I would do it as I have no idea what to do when it comes to these things and fear that after putting the car back together once fixed it would resemble that of a spaceship rather than that of a Felicia! Are there any garages/mechanics out there that would do such a job and appreciate that this would be the problem rather than assuming that its something else and refusing to do the job? As you can probably gather Im completely clueless when it comes to all of this and would appreciate any form of help however little as I dont know where to go from here.

Many thanks in advance.

Nick

p.s We live in Derby city.

A backstreet sort of garage would probably do it (the one's you tend to see in small sheds and under railway bridge lockups). Hopefully someone here can fully outline the procedure for you, so even if the garage doesn't have a clue you can be armed with a printout

i did do a full step by step guide on hear somewere.

but it should cost no more than £150 at a main stealer.

Drain the gearbox oil, support the engine, remove the left hand (passenger side) gearbox mount, remove the end gearbox casing, replace the nuts, fit gearbox end casing (use gasket sealer), re fit mount and fill with oil through the speedometer drive.

Do not use 5th gear until it is fixed as then you will need another gearbox.

http://briskoda.net/favorit-felicia-fun-forman/noise-fifth-gear/79018/#post1276901