Should I be thinking about splitting the gearbox and transfer box to check the shafts there? Is there an easy was of checking this without splitting them?

Don't need to split them yet - see posts 17 and 18 above :) .... sounds very much like the TB input gear splines have gone to me.....:(
 
The spline wear is the splines from the gb to the tb, so it would be prudent to split the two and check....

Clutch arm punching through is common....the slippers wont cause you to loose drive I would say.
 
The early R380 gearboxes fitted to the 300Tdi did not have the transfer box input shaft drilled to let oil through.
This caused wear in the splines on the gearbox until the mainshaft just spins in the transfer box.
If this is the case then the gear box shaft needs replacing(Lay shaft or mainshaft(Can't remember which one)) and so does the transfer box input with a new cross drilled one. Lets hope it is the clutch hey??

Op could check that by taking the transfer PTO cover off and having a look

As Mr Kwakerman mentioned - OP can check for this by taking the transfer PTO cover off....

If, as we expect, the shaft and gear have failed - or rather eaten each other alive, then split them.... :)

Edited to add:-

Parts diagrams are here:-

http://www.allbrit.de/select.cfm?PAGE=J&CAR=L1&SPRACHE=EN
 
I had the cover off before I dropped the gearbox.

So when you lifted the clutch and tried to get drive, at a certain point you would get a rattle and all the gears on the transfer box would move like 1/8 of a turn or something.

Suppose I don't want to do a fullclutch change without maki sure when I've put it back together it's going to have fixed the problem!

Can I put it in first and spin the gears or something and see if the drum on the rear of the transfer box spins?

Cheers
 
Which cover did you have off - the one that's being suggested is the round one up at the top of the back surface of the transfer box.
 
Which cover did you have off - the one that's being suggested is the round one up at the top of the back surface of the transfer box.

I didn't realise there's was two! My bad. I had the rectangular one off before. Guess I need to check the one mentioned above. So circular one on top!
 
Can I put it in first and spin the gears or something and see if the drum on the rear of the transfer box spins?

Given we have some doubt about the state of the gearbox's - I wouldn't give it any more pain until you've found the problem...

So when you lifted the clutch and tried to get drive, at a certain point you would get a rattle and all the gears on the transfer box would move like 1/8 of a turn or something.

This is why we think its the failure described in posts 17, 18, 22, 23 etc.

I had the cover off before I dropped the gearbox.

I had presumed you meant the bottom cover - rather than the PTO cover...

have a nosy at this vid:-



Suppose I don't want to do a fullclutch change without maki sure when I've put it back together it's going to have fixed the problem!

Correct - need to find the problem first - and you have at least saved yourself the issue of the clutch letting go at some point in the future.....
:)
 
Finally got round to doing this today, been busy with work commitments.

So got the gearbox and transfer box dropped down, had a look in the clutch. Looks to be ok, which is worrying. There's was some oil in there that shouldn't have been. Not much though. Clutch seems ok, but will be replaced anyway. Gearbox input shaft is fine. Splines are really good. The only thing that I could find in the clutch housing was the slipper pads on the clutch arm were both completely locked tight on one position. Could this cause the problems of loosing drive?
Also there was a crack on the clutch arm, hadn't punched through but couldn't have been far off!

Should I be thinking about splitting the gearbox and transfer box to check the shafts there? Is there an easy was of checking this without splitting them?

Cheers guys!
have you tried turning the clutch center whilst holding the outer
 
have you tried turning the clutch center whilst holding the outer

I'd assumed you had tried this - be better if this was the problem... but its worth checking the input gear is the cross drilled one whilst you have it all in bits....
 

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