5th Gear in Nissan

Jim
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ThreadID: 47172

Doug

Hopefully one day this century Mr Slowjo and MR Missin will see the light and make a cogswapper the same as the Tonka trucks running our highways, instead of just throwing a little gear on the end of the cog train.

Here's hopeing but I am not holding my breath.

tonka toy, use 4th and keep one eye on the road and one on your mirrors.
Have a safe one,

The Ape

TT,
Dunno if I'm in a position to be commenting on this matter but I've owned one of these vehicles for the past 3 years and towed a camper trailer (sure not as big as your caravan but almost as heavy) more than 20,000 K's and most of this has been in 5th gear. Tyre size is possibly one of the biggest problems in this discussion (I'm running 265/75x16) but the 2.8 is quite low geared and would be getting well up the tacho if you adhered to the 4th only policy.

Last year I had a Steinbauer chip fitted and was able to cruise on gravel roads at 80kph also in #5 and all's well so far. This will probably set the 5th-only lobbyists howling but everybody to their own???

I've often wondered how driving uphill with a headwind and the pedal-to-the-metal fits in this old argument as well.

I only tow in 5th when the car is over 100 kph on the flat with no drag, any other time it has been in 4th.

I've been towing for many years using this practice.

My trucks are Toyota's, I do believe the gearbox in the Nissan's are stronger though.

Hope this helps Steve.

Just blew fifth 3 weeks ago near Broome. Not towing. Heavily loaded vehicle in a head wind doing 100kph. Vehicle had 160K an 02 GU. Thankfully they keep going tho. Dropping it off to be fixed today actually. Mechanic had replaced 7 so far this year and does quite a lot. Design fault in the box but with the new shaft and bearings, he reckons no more problems. (Splines are much more significant in length). Expensive problem tho. I'd only tow in fourth. Cheers Mick.

Yes I have had to replace 5th.

Trevor. 00 Gu 4.2Turbo. and 99 100 series Cruiserx2

I guess that one of the downsides of having a Chev 6.5 V8 under the bonnet, is that there is just soooo much low torque that I almost always tow my Ultimate Camper (about 1300kg fully loaded, behind the Patrol itself which tips thescales @ 3540 before I load it up) using 5th gear. It (the motor) just does it so easy. If I drop back to 4th it seems like I'm revving it too hard and that's even with 315/75 (35") tyres to help keep the revs down.

I did have to have my 5th cog and main shaft changed at 88,000klm on my last 4.2TD Patrol (2000 model). Thsi current truck is also a 2000 model with almost 200,000klm and the Chev V8 has been under the bonnet for that whole 7 year (almost) period. I'm guessing that a previous owner has probably had 5th gear changed.....there is no way I can see that it would've lasted this long on the original.

Nobody seems to have said whether they tow in 5th once they've had their 5th gear fixed up?! Anyway, I do tow in 5th all the time and so far so good.

There WAS a problem with the Patrol 5th gear from about '99 through to '02.

I've never heard of a failure outside that range, and have been towing in 5th on my 16 year old Patrol 4.2 diesel since new with never an issue.
....And there is certainly no mention of NOT using 5th for towing in the Patrol.

The Patrol gearbox is MUCH tougher than the Tojo. I've seen both in pieces.
Having said that, I'm not positive which gearbox is on the 2.8.

Hooroo

The photo below is from a post on Outerlimits where someone is changing his auto GU to a manual. It clearly shows the difference of the old main shaft and the new one with it's much longer spline area. On the old shafts the spline would fail as there was not enough engagement on the spline and cog.
Regards Andrew.

I've gotta agree with Kiwi B - I too have a 1998 2.8 GU and have towed my 1.4tonne KangaCamper more than 25000km (and about to head off on another 10000km trip) - without problem. I am always in 5th gear by 80km except on the hills. If you know anything about the 2.8 it doesn't like hills too much so I'm often down to 3rd. From my viewpoint I believe that you just need to drive to the terrain...when you see it starting to rise, kick the gears back one....or 2....or 3:-)