Is this normal ?

[Cushing]

Split the gearbox from the engine and noticed the shaft is still in the engine !!! is this normal ?

[Vulcan Grey]

No, not normal...  Your 88 turbo should have the Renault transaxle, which has a 2 piece input shaft, but the 2 pieces of the shaft are pinned together normally.

[Cushing]

Yes, it's a Renault box.  So what’s happened inside my gearbox then ? I was planning to open it up and replace most of the parts anyway. Lots of whining noise when I pick the car up and both drive-shafts are bent/twisted !! so I think it’s had a hard life. Also when I drained the oil from the gearbox it came out pink, looked like water had mixed with the oil, also loads of silver dust/filings in fluid and on magnet plug.  I also asked in another thread about putting in a S4 gearbox instead as I have two new S4 drive-shafts.

[Vulcan Grey]

Most likely the roll pin, that pins the two parts of the input shaft together, has broken, or a previous owner left it out...

 

May just need a rebuild and maybe some synchros, or a synchro-hub...  or it could be bad.

 

You can put in an S4 gearbox, but the rear cover on the S4 box changed to have the shift selector translator on the opposite side of the box, so you'll need to move your earlier rear housing to the new box.

 

You can see my photos of the box torn apart on my 89SE here

https://picasaweb.google.com/116113253735518541549/LotusClutchAndTranny?noredirect=1

 

This tube goes around the input shaft and seals the box and bellhousing...

The 2 pieces of the input shaft are pined together within this tube.  Do you have this tube and seals?