After a few drives in my newly acquired UK spec ’74 TCS, I found I just couldn’t cope with the mental or physical strain of second and reverse gears getting too intimate. Searching around here for possible solutions didn’t fill me with hope so I decided to investigate a way of only being able to choose the gear I wanted, not the ones offered by the gear lever!
After removing the gear knob and the “transmission tunnel” cover I checked to see what I was dealing with and what the angular separation was between second and reverse gears. Noting this, I then thought of how I might stop this clashing. I decided to make a solid “stop” block at the first/second gear plane that would then need to be altered to allow the gear lever to go through its détente into the reverse plane.
I cut some cardboard into a rough “L” shape (see the photos) and tried it for size, then did the same in wood and finally in about ½”. thick aluminium (I didn’t have any aluminum…..). Obviously I was careful positioning and drilling the holes to ensure I didn’t hit anything vital in the gear lever location and had to file a clearance slot to miss one of the bolts. (pic Gear Lever 3).
I found a 20mm dia. piece of ally tube with a ½” hole in that fitted nicely around the gear lever. This allowed me to position the L shaped piece with the lever exactly in the 1st/2nd plane. I had already filed the top 16deg. angle of the “L” piece.
Having small hands, I could get through the oval opening and under the gear lever, then loosely bolt the plate in position to check all was OK. I then made the proper tapered stop bar in stainless (that’s all I had that was of the right’ish size, and it doesn't need to be tapered I realised later!). After some small adjustments it all got bolted up tight, not easy to get at but possible. Keep a magnet on a stick handy to pick up your spanners from the tunnel floor!
Having also made the big double tapered shiny (as it’s visible) stainless “washer” that would be positioned near the top of the gear leaver to be used to lift the lower tapered part up, it was just a matter or drilling through both of them and connecting them together with a 3mm dia piece of stainless bar, making the holes a bit larger and using glassfibre resin as adhesive, filing off any excess.
I did have to make a small cut in the rubber gaiter to allow these two bits to rise, and more importantly, fall freely. I made these two parts out of stainless instead of ally to be heavy enough to fall back into place coming out of reverse.
This all worked to my satisfaction and might work for anyone else who feels the need to try and improve their gearchanging experience. The enclosed drawings are the sizes that worked for me, but yours might be different, but this could give you some idea of my design.
PS. I did this with only a hacksaw, a pistol drill and some files.
ATB
Horace Marks
