Well Hello There Fellow Technicians And Hivers

It's the start of the week and I already had some shitty job I had to attend to. The job was simple enough, fitting a new Dual Clutch on a Ford EcoSport automatic of course.

Where do I even start? Seriously?

This car that I had to work on today was in such a disastrous state, how it's still driving is beyond me. It was in a HUGE accident and if they had insurance they would have definitely wrote it off. Now whether the insurance made a payment or not is beyond me I have no clue but if they did they spent that money on some other stuff.

I will share a few pictures of the absolute mess but the pictures don't do justice to how badly ruined this car is, seriously you have to see it in person as a whole to fully understand.

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Let Us Do Some Damage Assessment!

It won't hurt doing some sort of assessment while removing the transmission now would it?

Laughs I'm just going to start throwing in pictures of the damage, and keep in mind this isn't even all of it, neither is it the worst. Seeing the whole vehicle would make you understand.

Here goes.

This is the drivers door, it's... well I have words for it but let's not go there.

What I can say is that none of the doors on the vehicle are aligned anymore, it seems the whole vehicle has been twisted. Along with that the boot hatch and the bonnet are also not aligned anymore. The bumper is kept in place by ceiling screws and zip ties!

(Sorry this picture is blurry.)

This is just one of the four wheels. Those rims are not repairable by any means. Like you can pray as hard as you want BUT even God will tell you to let go!

If they are that badly damaged they must be bent and twisted as well!

Oh and none of the tires have the same life left! Laughs, neither are they the same brands as well. A different brand for every tire.

Well the brakes, wait what brakes?

Well at-least there's still a spot left on it that actually brakes.

Honestly I drove this car around the block because it doesn't have reverse gear so I had to circle around, and I feared for my life! This is the left braking assembly and whenever I braked it felt like the vehicle was pulling to the left! At first I thought it was the steering rack causing problems. (BTW it's also defective in some way.)

Okay with that said the brakes are a heap of a mess, not safe to drive like this yes, but this isn't the reason the car is pulling to the left! No No.

I'll show you a bit later in the post.

But look at this? Compare this wall with the other wall, How on earth did anyone fit new brakes for this guy and not recommend new discs along with it?

Or maybe he didn't get new brakes? I don't even know.

By this point I already started with the removal of the transmission, welp they sure made the job a little bit easier wont you say? I didn't even have to pop out the CV, it just fell out by it self.

_Now since we are only doing a clutch replacement and an internal check of the transmission this is not my worries, the best I can do it put a cable tie around the boot and hope for the best.

Although we wont leave the client hanging, he will be very well informed of the state of his vehicle. But I have an idea that he already knows everything.

See this? This right here is the stabilizer bar on the vehicle.

These two ends are supposed to be together, this is one single unit.

I suppose not anymore ey!

Remember I said that the vehicle pulls to the left when braking, this is the reason for that right here!

There's a lot more terribly wrong on this car!

Oh Dear Lord!

This is absolutely killing my soul! I should actually take a photo of my engine bay for a comparison.

If this hood has been opened since the car was bought I'd be hella surprised! Do you know what the worst part is? This is one of the newer models, I'd say around 2017, okay I know that already six years okay but if the car was bought at the end of 2017 and we are in the start of 2023 this car is just over four years old and look at it.

It's mostly just dust and that surprises me even more because a car that's been in an accident that this one must have been it's bound to have major oil leaks._

The further down I went the nastier it got!

Laughs I only remember now typing this, the engine bay is nothing compared to the actual inside of the car, there is sugar lying around everywhere along with chips and spilt milkshakes or yoghurt or something else.

It was by far the most disgusting car I've ever driven.

Whelp, it's no longer the colour of titanium xD!

This car has been through a lot and I'd say the accident was only a small part of it all!

How can anyone spend such an insane amount of money on a vehicle and literally turn it into a wreck? I understand accidents happen but when they do either write off the car or fix it. Why put your own life at risk for what? Getting to work faster?

Not worth it at all!

Well this is somewhat of a shock! LAUGHS!

Can this be true? Can this be the only spot where an oil leak is? This feels unreal! I think motor wise this is in a fairly good condition giving everything I said. The tranny is buggered though or more so the clutch. The rest seems quite okay actually, apart from this oil leak on the oil fitler.

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Let's Focus Where It's Needed.

Let's get our attention back to the transmission, this thing is quite buggered up!

The main problem is the clutch, what it does is rather simple I had the same problem on my vehicle. When accelerating from a stand still it selects first gear and then slips like crazy when it wants to select second gear, then it can't select the second gear and it jumps over to third gear, this will repeat with fourth gear and then jumps to fifth gear. The same principle applies when it down gears, also it has no reverse.

So how these work is they have a counter-shaft, as all transmissions do BUT this one has two cluster-shafts, that's why it's a dual clutch transmission. One clutch for each cluster.

Now the one cluster has 1st, 3rd and 5th gear on it. While the other cluster has R, 2nd, 4th and 6th gear on it. That is why it jump through gears. So this transmission definitely has a mechanical error inside the box.

How do I know this?

Well this is how I know!

Look at all the metal shavings inside the oil. Now this might not be something big and I think I know what the problem is here! The selector for the one cluster tore out a piece of metal that is supposed to stop it from selecting and de-selecting gears.

Let's rip her open!

Well there we go, problem found. It still needs a new clutch though that one is burned blue.

That is no bigger than my thumb, can you see how badly such a small piece of aluminum can ruin all of that oil?

At-least it's aluminum, it's very soft and doesn't cause damage to any other internal components.

Lucky.

I cleaned off as much of the metal shavings and dirty oil I could and we had a replacement casing ready and waiting so this was a quick fix.

I love the look of this transmission, I really do.

Well I should probably close her up and fit the clutch!

One can say that I am done, the fitting of the clutch is very very easy to do and after it's fitted to the transmission I can then simply rebuild the whole car and have it exit the shop driving smoothly. Well somewhat smoothly.

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Dated 17/04/2023

Take note this is not a how to guide, merely myself talking about the work I do and my thoughts around certain things.

To everyone who made it this far into my post Thank you for the read and the support.

If you found this entertaining or educational please consider a re-blog and up-vote.

Most of all please leave a input in the comments below, whether is good or bad critic I would like to know, whether its your opinion or your way of doing things in a different manner I would like.

_{Connecting the people of #HIVE across South Africa. #hive}