Advice on gear change adjustment
Discussion
Hi all,
At a recent meet I happened to try the gearchanges of a few of the esprits. It has become apparant that mine is wuite a bit more "sloppy" than normal. Would this be due to adjustment in the cables?? If so is this an easy job or am I best leaving it for the mechanic?? My car is an 89 Turbo and the cars I based my comparison on were of a similar year.
Thanks for the help
Alan
89 Turbo
At a recent meet I happened to try the gearchanges of a few of the esprits. It has become apparant that mine is wuite a bit more "sloppy" than normal. Would this be due to adjustment in the cables?? If so is this an easy job or am I best leaving it for the mechanic?? My car is an 89 Turbo and the cars I based my comparison on were of a similar year.
Thanks for the help
Alan
89 Turbo
th4neuk said:
Hi all,
At a recent meet I happened to try the gearchanges of a few of the esprits. It has become apparant that mine is wuite a bit more "sloppy" than normal. Would this be due to adjustment in the cables?? If so is this an easy job or am I best leaving it for the mechanic?? My car is an 89 Turbo and the cars I based my comparison on were of a similar year.
Thanks for the help
Alan
89 Turbo
Hi me again, there's no escaping me now. There's a post on yahoo yesterday when you were having a great time watching 2 fast 2 furious. A guy has just replced his rods and linkage etc, some of which came from SJ.
He has noticed a 100% improvement.
Have a look through yesterday's posts.
Cheers,
Dave Walters
I've got the Citroen box with the rod fore/aft change and the crossgate cable for the lateral shift.
I don't know anything about the Renault box in terms of shift linkage, which is why I haven't been able to offer a view on your post.
Looking at the Jeremy Walton book, it suggests that the Renault box was fitted with two cables. The principles, however, will be broadly the same as the earlier cars, as will the level of difficulty involved.
Adjustment is certainly no big deal for the crossgate cable and is carried out at the rear of the linkage, so no disassembly of the centre console is strictly necessary.
Replacement was not particularly difficult. It was, however a time consuming and fiddly job and would not have been a DIY proposition if I didn't have a second car to use whilst the Lotus was off the road.
I replaced the crossgate cable on my own, which made it rather more challenging.
You need to dismantle a fair part of the centre console on the Series 3 cars, including removing the radio, air con and heater controls, as well as removing the console itself, before you can get to where the gearlever meets the cable(s). I am guessing that it will be the same for the later cars.
You will also need to drop the undertray so that you can feed the cable into the transmission tunnel. The cable passes through a fairly inaccessible grommet which was a bitch to replace.
In addition, the replacement cable came with larger than standard locking nuts, the front one was too big to fit through the hole in the back of the transmission tunnel. I filed off the corners on the nut to get it through.
In terms of difficulty, I would suggest that it is about three times as much hassle as swapping to a stainless steel clutch hose, so if your car still has a Red Hose, start by changing this to get a feel for whether you want to get involved with the gear linkage.
Finally, I would suggest that adjustment can be carried out much more accurately if you have the centre console removed. This allows a visible check on the position of the gear lever relative to the first/second gear and the reverse stop.
Hth,
Pat
>> Edited by PatHeald on Sunday 22 June 22:35
I don't know anything about the Renault box in terms of shift linkage, which is why I haven't been able to offer a view on your post.
Looking at the Jeremy Walton book, it suggests that the Renault box was fitted with two cables. The principles, however, will be broadly the same as the earlier cars, as will the level of difficulty involved.
Adjustment is certainly no big deal for the crossgate cable and is carried out at the rear of the linkage, so no disassembly of the centre console is strictly necessary.
Replacement was not particularly difficult. It was, however a time consuming and fiddly job and would not have been a DIY proposition if I didn't have a second car to use whilst the Lotus was off the road.
I replaced the crossgate cable on my own, which made it rather more challenging.
You need to dismantle a fair part of the centre console on the Series 3 cars, including removing the radio, air con and heater controls, as well as removing the console itself, before you can get to where the gearlever meets the cable(s). I am guessing that it will be the same for the later cars.
You will also need to drop the undertray so that you can feed the cable into the transmission tunnel. The cable passes through a fairly inaccessible grommet which was a bitch to replace.
In addition, the replacement cable came with larger than standard locking nuts, the front one was too big to fit through the hole in the back of the transmission tunnel. I filed off the corners on the nut to get it through.
In terms of difficulty, I would suggest that it is about three times as much hassle as swapping to a stainless steel clutch hose, so if your car still has a Red Hose, start by changing this to get a feel for whether you want to get involved with the gear linkage.
Finally, I would suggest that adjustment can be carried out much more accurately if you have the centre console removed. This allows a visible check on the position of the gear lever relative to the first/second gear and the reverse stop.
Hth,
Pat
>> Edited by PatHeald on Sunday 22 June 22:35
Pat many thanks for that.
I did assume yours was the citreon box but as you say the cable side will be very similar. I assume then that the main adjustment is carried out at the gearbox end. Will it help if after each turn of adjustment I have someone in the car to try the change???
Cheers
Alan
I did assume yours was the citreon box but as you say the cable side will be very similar. I assume then that the main adjustment is carried out at the gearbox end. Will it help if after each turn of adjustment I have someone in the car to try the change???
Cheers
Alan
All the adjustment for the Citroen linkage is at the gearbox end.
Crossgate adjustment is made by removing the clevis pin from the extension rod (or the rose joint bolt if you have done the modification) and turning the extension rod to move the gearlever across the gate.
The adjustment is pretty critical and needs to be done half a turn at a time if you really want to fine tune the shift.
Because testing after each adjustment requires the clevis pin to be refitted, this can be a labourious job, but it is important to get it right.
The job is made a lot easier if you have an accomplice to sit in the car, if only because you will be covered in filth from lying on your back under your leaky gearbox...
It is also preferable to have removed the top of the transmission tunnel and the centre console, because then you can see exactly where the lever is relative to the stops. Removing the centre console is, however, a relatively fiddly job, because you need to take out the radio and the full centre console.
If you don't get the adjustment correct, then it will be the extent of the crossgate cable travel, rather than the gearlever stops that limit the lever movement. This will cause the cable to stretch prematurely and will also cause a slightly less positive feel to the lever when moving it to the extreme left or right.
If you are clever (unlike me....) then you could scribe the lever position against the lever mechanism before removing the old crossgate cable. This will enable you to get the adjustment in the right ballpark almost as soon as you have fitted the new cable.
Hth,
Pat.
Crossgate adjustment is made by removing the clevis pin from the extension rod (or the rose joint bolt if you have done the modification) and turning the extension rod to move the gearlever across the gate.
The adjustment is pretty critical and needs to be done half a turn at a time if you really want to fine tune the shift.
Because testing after each adjustment requires the clevis pin to be refitted, this can be a labourious job, but it is important to get it right.
The job is made a lot easier if you have an accomplice to sit in the car, if only because you will be covered in filth from lying on your back under your leaky gearbox...
It is also preferable to have removed the top of the transmission tunnel and the centre console, because then you can see exactly where the lever is relative to the stops. Removing the centre console is, however, a relatively fiddly job, because you need to take out the radio and the full centre console.
If you don't get the adjustment correct, then it will be the extent of the crossgate cable travel, rather than the gearlever stops that limit the lever movement. This will cause the cable to stretch prematurely and will also cause a slightly less positive feel to the lever when moving it to the extreme left or right.
If you are clever (unlike me....) then you could scribe the lever position against the lever mechanism before removing the old crossgate cable. This will enable you to get the adjustment in the right ballpark almost as soon as you have fitted the new cable.
Hth,
Pat.
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