RE: Rover SD1 | Spotted

[Quavers]

Where did the monkey business article come from?

[Vince70]

s m said:

Yep, reverse was top left in the 4-speed XR3, on its own, 1and 2 were stacked to the right

5-speed XR3 box, reverse was bottom right with 5th top right as you looked at the gearknob

I had an early carb XR3 which was converted from a 4 to 5 speed and actually the chassis was different as it had a little cut out to fit the 5 speed if I remember as it wouldn’t fit otherwise and if you used a 4 speed linkage it would have trouble getting all the gears but it was possible just.

[s m]

Vince70 said:

s m said:

Yep, reverse was top left in the 4-speed XR3, on its own, 1and 2 were stacked to the right

5-speed XR3 box, reverse was bottom right with 5th top right as you looked at the gearknob

I had an early carb XR3 which was converted from a 4 to 5 speed and actually the chassis was different as it had a little cut out to fit the 5 speed if I remember as it wouldn’t fit otherwise and if you used a 4 speed linkage it would have trouble getting all the gears but it was possible just.

Yep, the engine mounts were different on the 5-sp XR3 to the 4-sp XR3 to get the 5-sp box to fit
The gap between the inner wing and cam belt is smaller on a 5-sp XR3 than a 4-sp - the 4-speed box XR3 engine mount is larger that side than the later 5-sp mount
As a previous poster said though, if it was a 5-sp car with a 4-sp knob he would have noticed the 5th gear first time he looked for reverse and didn’t find it to the extreme left on the gate!