Remote Gearchange - Cable Operated

[Fat Arnie]

Hi,

Anyone any experience of Push-Pull gearchange cables? I need to use such an arrangement to operate the gear change on my car which has the lever on the right hand sill and the selector input on the rear left of the gearbox like below:



The car is a replica of a red Italian car so the lever has the ususal ally finger plate between which the lever moves. Does anyone have any ideas how effective a cable control would be in these circumstances?

[rdodger]

I got mine from here. http://www.rcscables.com/

Very good quality and Gordon is very helpful. They supply all the hardware to go with them too.

[anonymous-user]

Could also try contacting http://www.cableshift.com/.

[Fat Arnie]

OK, I may not have been clear. My question is, do they work in practice? Whats the change like from cold? (Ferrari 348 has a much slated cable shift)

If I have defined gate positions for the gears on the lever fingers, with the backlash in the cable will I lose the resolution of the change?

[rdodger]

I have almost 0 backlash on the cable. They are rose jointed at both ends and are much heavier weight than OE cables.

The gearchange is rifle bolt precise.

I use mine on an Elise change on my GTM Libra so a more direct route than yours but I would expect they would work well.

The PG1 gearbox in mine isn't the last word in slick gearboxes but is much improved over the original set up.

[Mr2Mike]

The more (and tighter) bends you have, the less precise and more backlash you get. If you can get a relatively straight run, or just a gentle curve then they work well. OTOH dozens of production cars built down to a budget show just now nasty cable changes can get.

[Russ Bost]

I use cables about 3m long on the Furore F1 with a standard Toyota engine/gearbox & have some fairly tight bends, gearshift is just as good as the MR2 donor, ie perfect. Quality/weight of the cables is very important, lightweight, floppy cables will destroy the accuracy of the shift.

[Fat Arnie]

Russ, what is the dia and number of strands of the cable you are using?

[andygtt]

Im useing a porsche cable gearchange from a 996 getrag and same as the boxster S as thats one of the nicest ones i have ever tried.

Ultima boys use either a rod or a cable, i personally hate the rod ones as there is too much slack.

[Russ Bost]

Arnie
Couldn't tell you the no. of threads etc as it's not specified by the supplier, they told me I needed a heavyweight cable & I accepted their knowledge as being greater than mine! From the thickness of the outers they are substantially thicker than the Toyota originals. I just tried to get at a cable to measure the actual cable thickness, but the ends are actually pushrods which disappear inside the cable outer.
The company I use is RDB cables, they were very helpful, tho' certainly not cheap.

I was warned off using anything like a standard teleflex cable by several people, I think these are probably fine for bike gearshifts, but not for an H shift.

[Mr2Mike]

Russ Bost said:

I use cables about 3m long on the Furore F1 with a standard Toyota engine/gearbox & have some fairly tight bends, gearshift is just as good as the MR2 donor, ie perfect.

None of the several MR2s I have driven could be described as having a perfect gearchange. I'd go so far as "not bad for a cable change", but they are NEVER as good as a well designed rod linkage IME, though obviously a rod linkage can not always be used.