BXProject

Hope all are well

The gearbox on my 205 has always been poor, with a chattering at idle I put down to a knackered input shaft bearing. There is also the tendency for the gear lever to vibrate on acceleration. The car now has an (increasing every week) sort of vibratory rumble when it's subject to high torque over around 40mph; sounds kind of like a wheel bearing or driveshaft even, but pretty confident these are fine.

Just had it jacked up to check driveshafts, and had a go driving it with each wheel jacked up; there was a worrying level of clatter regardless of which wheel was revolving, which I guess is normally masked under tyre noise etc.

Sound like the box? If so will it go bang and leave bits of gearbox all over the M62 or soldier on a bit longer?

J.

and does anyone know what other vehicles use the same ratios as the 205 diesel?

Those noises could be one of two things (or both) It could be the mainshaft bearings or the 2 either side of the diff, just behind where the d/shafts go in.
Either way I've never had one actually go bang.

I've also used petrol boxes in diesels and converted petrol to diesel without changing the box.
You can look the ratio's up but they are all so close together, in my experience it's not worth the bother. There are a few odd final drives on specialist stuff but if you aint got one of they you are OK.

BE3's can throw the planet gears through the bellhousing, I've seen lots go like that... but, they are a mighty tough box really..
what type of clutch arm has it got dude? I'm not convinced I have any Na boxes left, but I'll look.
might be worth checking the bolts that hold the 2 halves of the box casing together, and the diff housing bolts, they can come loose and cause judder as the bearings can obviousley skip about..
all that said, the original BE3 in my red car when it was NA19 had a cracked bellhousing (it was held to the engine with only 2 bolts) juddered and rattled like skeleton having a wank in a biscuit tin, and that did 250000 miles and never failed. I only binned it off because I changed the clutch and had another box instock that didn't have a smashed bell housing!