Outer Limits 4x4 Board

i was driving down the hume hwy and felt a thud in the car, i couldn`t find anything wrong at the time so i shrugged it off, 200m down the road the thud returned more savage and i pulled over. when i tried to drive off it was like taking off with the handbrake on, so i gave it abit of juice and popped the clutch and i heard a bang followed by a grinding noise. i tried to drive off again and realised i now only have 4th gear, every other gear just revs when i try to take off like its in neutral. the car free rolls ok but i start the car take my foot off the clutch and push the gear stick through the gears without stalling the motor and driving anywhere. 4th gear works fine. i thought i have done a gearbox so i drained the oil out of the box only to find the oil clean, not burnt with no metal chunks or stripped gears. so i was thinking maybe the clutch was shattered but if that was right then why can i take off in 4th gear fine.

Its a 1993 Pajero 2.5 Turbo Diesel Manual

Any help would be welcome.
thanks.

2freeq wrote:i was driving down the hume hwy and felt a thud in the car, i couldn`t find anything wrong at the time so i shrugged it off, 200m down the road the thud returned more savage and i pulled over. when i tried to drive off it was like taking off with the handbrake on, so i gave it abit of juice and popped the clutch and i heard a bang followed by a grinding noise. i tried to drive off again and realised i now only have 4th gear, every other gear just revs when i try to take off like its in neutral. the car free rolls ok but i start the car take my foot off the clutch and push the gear stick through the gears without stalling the motor and driving anywhere. 4th gear works fine. i thought i have done a gearbox so i drained the oil out of the box only to find the oil clean, not burnt with no metal chunks or stripped gears. so i was thinking maybe the clutch was shattered but if that was right then why can i take off in 4th gear fine.

Its a 1993 Pajero 2.5 Turbo Diesel Manual

Any help would be welcome.
thanks.

I'm not much help, but I believe 4th gear is often 1:1, driving through a dog clutch, while all the others use gears on one or more "lay shafts". I guess that somehow you've lost drive through the lay shafts, but I have NFI how that would happen, or what that would mean for the future of your gearbox.

Or I could be completely wrong.

It sounds to me as if the internal selectors in the gearbox have come adrift, allowing two gears to try to engage at the same time eg gear 2 and 3. This would lock up the box.4th gear is a direct drive, but even so I would expect that the rest of the clusters would be rotating (or trying to do so). Do you have reverse? I would expect that you don't. Whatever the cause, sadly it sounds expensive.

bugger, oh well, time to rip it out and see what the damage is.