Transmission Linkage Failures

Here’s a new video that covers a few older posts related to my problems with the DeLorean’s automatic transmission linkage.

I think of this entire bellcrank design as a kludge. It seems clear from the Renault manuals that this transmission was never intended to be mounted in a car like the DeLorean, and the compromises and work-arounds required to make it work led to these specific failures.

That said, I’ll admit that the car was never intended to last this long, and I doubt these failures would have happened during the expected life of the car, but man are they annoying when they do happen.

Stranded By a Seized Bellcrank

It also covers something I haven’t documented before, when the bellcrank seized and my shifter literally snapped in half. This left me stranded in park two and a half hours from home and stuck in drive, but a DeLorean Motor Center (now DeLorean California) was able to help me figure out how to bypass the start inhibit system and force the car to start from drive so I could get home. This incident predates the creation of this site, so there’s no specific post to cover it, but the video sums it up pretty well.

Linkage Cable Bracket Nut Carrier

The second part of the video covers a few posts from this site related to keeping the transmission side of the linkage secured to the inside of the frame.

• Reinstalling the Engine and Transmission introduces the aluminum nut carrier.

• Oil Changes, Sender Leak and Transmission Cable Bracketog/2021/5/8/oil-changes-sender-leak-and-transmission-cable-bracket updates it to the new 3D printed nut carrier.

Odds and Ends

I mention a few other transmission failures at the end of the video, most of which happened before I started this site. But I do call out the leaking pipe to the torque converter, which is covered in Resealing the Automatic Transmission.