Job For A Cold Wet Wednesday

[daktari]

Being notoriously tight fisted, i`ve decided in a moment of total boredom that today`s the day i sort out the gearchange on the four. Nice n simple i think. (The job, not me...... Dunno tho. :D ) Remove gearlever. Beat upper sleeve off with large blunt instrument. Refit lever and knobby thing. Fit new gear linkage bearing/bushes (Thanks GT4 BOOSTER ) Should reduce the length of the lever by a couple of inches. Obviously it wil need slightly more effort to change gear as the bottom bit of the lever won`t be altered. I`ll let you know later how it went. With piccies i hope. :D

[celsteve]

Good luck! Not something I could undertake (without the aid of an extremely detailed write-up anyway, even then not sure) but go for it!! As you say it aint a great day and you've just given me the motivation to go and valet the car instead of sitting infront of the pc!

[daktari]

I think mine could do with a clean. But i`ll wait for a sunny day.

Gear lever mod is done. Took less than an hour. If anyone else tries this, be warned AFAIK the gen 5 has 2 diferent gear lever set ups. Early and late. Anyway this is mine and how i did it.

Before shots these two show the height and the throw of the lever.

Removing the gearlever is fairly starightforward. Details & photos can be found on a multitude of sites.

Once you`ve got the lever out and removed the large central bush you should be left with something like this.

The large washer in the above image is located about an inch above the bend in the lever. A few hefty taps and it comes off easily. The hatched area is the piece to be removed. (The piece of paper is there for size reference.)

You`ll then be left with this.

In my instance i didn`t need to worry about the threaded portion at the end. If you want a threaded bit you`ll have to turn the shaft down to suit and cut a new thread. M12 x 1.25 pitch.

Reassembly is a reverse of the dismantling procedure. Just make sure everything is clean and regreased. This is also a good time to check for any wear in the bushings.

Once it`s all back together it looks like this.

You can clearly see the difference it makes. It feels a little notchier but doesn`t take hardly any more effort to move. Once i get the bushes done at the gearbox end everything should snick into place quite nicely.

[celsteve]

Top job mate - it looks a lot better. Before it did kinda look like Emu!! :D :D

[chris202]

LOL i did that to my old 106 xsi , except i sat in the car removed the gear knob and attacked it with a hacksaw , worked well too ! :D

Looks good !

[GTForbes]

or you could simply buy a cheap second hand ST205 and it'll have a shorter throw lol

good job again mate, do you ever drive your car or just constantly do stuff to it? lol

[adamgt]

Looks good mate, much quicker changes when racing now?

Sorry to go off topic... but how long did it take to fit your WI in the end? Is it an easy job?

Thanks

[daktari]

or you could simply buy a cheap second hand ST205 and it'll have a shorter throw lol

good job again mate, do you ever drive your car or just constantly do stuff to it? lol

Yes.

Looks good mate, much quicker changes when racing now?

Sorry to go off topic... but how long did it take to fit your WI in the end? Is it an easy job?

Thanks

Well if you don`t count the fact that i changed the plumbing around a little bit i guess it was an afternoons work more or less. Pretty straight forward. The main problem was deciding whether to mount the pump in the engine bay or inside the car. Obviously i went fo rthe latter as there is more room and also it keeps the pump and water temps down a lot more than in the engine bay. You know how hot it gets in there.