[Bluestuff]

I had a good day yesterday, all 6 gears , all in the right place.!
I couldn't find a pin or something appropriate , so……..I made one .
I got a drill bit ( don't know what exact size it is ) and rustled around in my box of left over bolts accumulated over many years ….lol
I found a long bolt that was so close to the drill size i had.
Drilled out the hole on the selector shaft, only taking out the very minimum and also the bell crank,
I cut the shank off the bolt and created a pin just the right size and tapped that in thru.
I was a firm fit so shouldnt work loose, plus put the pin securing clip from the original set up and now
it is solid on the shaft, no movement at all !!
Then i was able to begin the process or finding the gears.
Strangly, the horizonal joint couldnt go back in far enough to engage 2-4-R
So i had to cut about 5mm of its stem to enable more movement.
This was enough to make the missing gears come to life once more.
A quick test drive on a sunny day with the top down and 26d Celsius temp .
All went well…….Job done.

 

[IanMc]

Well done - great job!

 

[Bluestuff]

adjustment part2
i got carried away today, i took out the center dash to swap the oil temp and clock to opposite sides.
While i was there i thought i should have a go at adjusting the gear lever/selector.
I tried adjusting the top bolt but there was no more left to crank in.
Same with the bottom nut was super tight, the bolt on the gear lever base was also tight with the hex on the ball.
So at this stage i hadn't achieved much , so i turned to the white nylon pad/socket.
This is were most of the slop was, so i cut a piece of panel steel ( no idea how think it was ) and shuffled it down the back of the nylon between it and the steel frame .
This made a heck lot of difference.
The gear lever is a lot firmer after a quick drive to the end of my street !
BUT, there is still a little movement overall.
I think it would be a major operation to fix all the worn holes and maybe slightly longer bolts forward and rearward .
So with every thing tight, my query would be how long will the shim last, are the nylon parts available ?
I can invisage the ball to wear right thru to the new steel shim i put in ?

how far down the rabbit hole do i go ?

 

[mowog73]

The slims (I think they are made from delrin) are not available. a friend's F had a very sloppy shifter, finding a gear was a lottery, it was like stirring oatmeal. A PO must have always rested his hand on the shifter.

I tried tightening the bolts around the shifter, which helped but still far from satisfactory, so I ended up replacing the shifter mechanism with a Mike Satur slick shift kit, which transformed the shifting. It was an expensive option but it more than cured the sloppy shifting issue. My friend is now overjoyed with the way the car shifts.