[ozbus]

I live in a Bedford VAL (in Australia) and it is in my opinion a very nice old bus. Having said that it is the first bus I have owned and driven, so I'm somewhat biased.

Recently I lost third gear climbing a mountain range, which kind of sucks because that was my climbing gear. All was going fine until I slowed down to let a car pass, and in releasing the tension on the drive train (foot of accelerator) something went clunk and felt like it jumped out of gear. Originally I thought a selector problem so I removed the top inspection plate to investigate. Judging by all the wear marks on the selectors (3rd on the same as 2nd) it is going all the way in but nothing engages.

Any ideas? How do I identify the gear box? It's a 6 speed (pretty sure 6th is an overdrive gear) but everyone I've spoken to here says that Val14's were fitted with the Turner 300 5 speed. A fellow VAL owner looked at it sometime ago before the breakage and remarked "Jeez, that gearbox is bigger than my Turner 5 speed", so was it common the re-gear these buses? Should I repair or replace?

Thanks for any help you can offer.