So, long story short - I've just had my transmission reconditioned whilst I was away working last week. Picked the RR up today, and drove it home.

Seems to behave ok, and definitely has more poke than before, so there was some noticeable wear in the old one!

But, the kicker... just as I was getting near to home (was about 50miles to get back) when I slowed down, I would get a fairly hard change and a 'clunk' when shifting down between 3rd - 2nd. I could replicate it on both auto driving, and bringing the selector manually down the gears and forcing it to change. Sometimes it's a bit of an low clunk - other times fairly solid sounding, and even a lurch.

Going up the gears seems to be fairly well ok, and it's only on the 3 - 2 downshift the issue occurs.

I've called the garage about it and they've said to drive it for a couple of days to see if it gets better, but otherwise I'm going to have to take it back, which is a pain around work and travels - so not going to get the chance to take it back until about 11th July! I also was supposed to be driving up to Liverpool for work at the start of next week, but not this has happened I'm going to have to look at alternative means, as I don't want to possibly damage the box at all!

Any thoughts of simple things I can check that might have a bearing on it? I'm going to double check fluid level tomorrow, and also silly things like prop shaft UJ's and bolts etc.

Slightly annoying given the cost of getting it done - but hey ho...

Marty

Mine gives a bit of a hard change going down when the idle is above normal (like when cold or when I had a sticky throttle butterfly) but so smooth if the revs are at idle that you have to look at the rev counter to see if it has actually changed down. If it was on something older with a kickdown cable I'd say it was that being out of adjustment but as it's electronic it may need driving to learn the shift points again.

Hard change is probably just the ECU re-learning things and generally getting its act together with the other electronics. If possible it might be worth checking that all the gearbox ECU inputs are sensibly central within the normal operating ranges. If its seeing an input right up to one end of the tolerance there may not be enough adaptive adjustment to get a smooth change with a newly re-built gearbox having nice tight clutches. On a well worn box the general sloppiness could be enough to absorb the harshness.

I'd be wanting to cast a beady eye on the engine torque reduction and road speed - output shaft speed dialogs. Maybe see what it does in Sport mode as the more aggressive operating set up puts more demands on the torque reduction and speed related control system.

A real internal mechanical clunk is, of course, seriously bad news.

Clive

I reset the adaptive values for the gearbox once I got home, as I had a look through them and they hadn't been done.

I went out briefly yesterday evening and checked the pressure values again when I got home, and the only one to have changed much is the US 2-3 value is now reading 244. Everything else is either 0 for most of the values, and a couple are reading 3

Coming to a slow/coasting stop with minimal/even braking has it show up more, but coming swiftly to a stop, it still happens but not as noticeable.

I'm guessing I'm going to have to find time to take it back (it's about 1hr 15 drive from home to the place that did it, but took me 3 hrs on public transport to get there to pick it up!) and get them to look at it... I'll get the guy to jump in with me and I can then make it do it for him, and he can hopefully diagnose it

I had a transmission "problem" after my Congleton c**ts swapped out my previous engine. It got really bad when going from park to D when cold but the clunking got less as it warmed up. Slowly though the thump felt through the car got worse. I did take it back to them and they told me it was just a worn transfer box chain, but was ok.

Anyway when I had this engine fitted by Dave and his dad at Eastcoast4x4 he asked me did I know that only the bottom 2 bolts were holding the transfer box to the engine? I asked would that explain the thumping noise? He said I'm surprised it didn't fall out as the 2 that were in were loose as well.
So now I have all the bolts and only a mild engagement clunk compared to the massive thump I used to get.

I reset all the values after I collected it and it drives nicely now.

I took mine back, and they had a look at it again whilst I was away working and on holiday.

It turned out that one of the valve/spring combinations in the valve pack was backwards. The guy said that he followed his overhaul manual to fit it all, but when comparing it to another valve body, the spring/valve were in the other orientation... I'm not surprised - the number of things I find in RAVE that don't match what's physically in the car has ceased to surprise me.

I picked it up when I got back from holiday and she drives like a champ again now.

Mukiwa wrote:

I had a transmission "problem" after my Congleton c**ts swapped out my previous engine. It got really bad when going from park to D when cold but the clunking got less as it warmed up. Slowly though the thump felt through the car got worse. I did take it back to them and they told me it was just a worn transfer box chain, but was ok.

Anyway when I had this engine fitted by Dave and his dad at Eastcoast4x4 he asked me did I know that only the bottom 2 bolts were holding the transfer box to the engine? I asked would that explain the thumping noise? He said I'm surprised it didn't fall out as the 2 that were in were loose as well.
So now I have all the bolts and only a mild engagement clunk compared to the massive thump I used to get.

I reset all the values after I collected it and it drives nicely now.

To be truthful, I can’t see any reason why anyone changing an engine would touch the gearbox, there’s no need to go anywhere near it, think it might of just been bad luck that you got the clunking after the work was done.
Has Dave brought his p38 out for the summer, it’s normally stored all winter, lol

no10chris wrote:

Mukiwa wrote:

I had a transmission "problem" after my Congleton c**ts swapped out my previous engine. It got really bad when going from park to D when cold but the clunking got less as it warmed up. Slowly though the thump felt through the car got worse. I did take it back to them and they told me it was just a worn transfer box chain, but was ok.

Anyway when I had this engine fitted by Dave and his dad at Eastcoast4x4 he asked me did I know that only the bottom 2 bolts were holding the transfer box to the engine? I asked would that explain the thumping noise? He said I'm surprised it didn't fall out as the 2 that were in were loose as well.
So now I have all the bolts and only a mild engagement clunk compared to the massive thump I used to get.

I reset all the values after I collected it and it drives nicely now.

To be truthful, I can’t see any reason why anyone changing an engine would touch the gearbox, there’s no need to go anywhere near it, think it might of just been bad luck that you got the clunking after the work was done.

Ah yes on that I agree, but what they did was fit an aluminium intake manifold engine to my plastic 99 MY P38 telling me that it wouldn't make any difference.

This meant that they couldn't match it to the newer gearbox, so they played mix and match, to be honest if they had told me I really wouldn't have minded as I understand why. What really pissed me off was that they didn't tell me because at least I would have known for the future. They also got very abusive and angry when I returned it 3 times for them to correct their cockups.

This only came to light when Dave asked my if I'd had the gearbox swapped as I had the wrong one for the car as well as the other 2 bolts missing problem. When he mated correct loom and plastic manifold engine to the car the gear box selection wouldn't show up on the dash. I still have the gear box but Dave had to remove the correct loom and re-install the old loom which funnily enough worked.

Oh and once the engine heated up it wouldn't restart - they told me they'd swapped my working FIP onto the donor engine. They didn't and the lovely worn out FIP had the hot start snag. My car had the hot start kit fitted but I had it disconnected on the old engine as the car was ok without it.

As I'd read up on the hot start problem I got them to connect the hot start kit to the new engine and then they fried the ecu, I was stood there when they did that. The only good thing they did was bleed my brakes and what a good bloody job they did. They have been awsome since.

Anyway we all know which garages/mechanic's we will never touch with a barge pole again.

Mukiwa wrote:

What really pissed me off was that they didn't tell me because at least I would have known for the future.

That's always my argument for doing everything myself. If it all goes as it should, fine, but if I have to do a bodge I at least know it's been bodged and know what to do when/if it fails. When someone else has done what you think is a proper job, you have no option but to trust that they've done it right.

Exactly my views these days