Crunch in 3rd gear

[adam03031980]

Does anyone know of any inherent problem with the gear crunching in 3rd the reason i ask is my dads and my friends hdis also do the same i have a 406 hdi 110

[mjb]

It's not something I've noticed come up here before although the D9 hydraulic clutches do seem to suffer from the master cylinder going. Where does the clutch bite? The 406 should bite right towards the top of the pedals travel - nowhere near the floor. If it's not really high I'd suggest grabbing a master cylinder from a breakers yard before it gets difficult to engage other gears

[adam03031980]

Yeh clutch bit is about midway i think it has probably moved down as it used to be a lot higher and also my clutch used to slip which would usually mean a new clutch "but" it stopped and since then i have towed caravsn trailers and done near 40k miles

[Welly]

Yep! if there's any gear in there which likes to crunch it's 3rd alright! don't know why but mine does it (only if I'm lazy and miss time the action though) in other words if your gonna mess up any gear on these it will normally be 3rd.

The 110 clutch/fly will slip when it's fully hot but sometimes it won't it's really weird! mines been doing this for 2 years it's most noticeable in 4th and 5th but doesn't stop the car from being use normally so I've just left mine alone.

[GeordieBoy]

Crunching in 3rd is it not more likely the synchro mesh in the gearbox?

[mjb]

Crunching in 3rd is it not more likely the synchro mesh in the gearbox?

I get it occasionally when I mess up a change - 2nd->3rd seems to need a lot cleaner clutch action while the others are more forgiving of mistakes