Big gear shift problems

[Joe]

I've really messed up my gear selector.

On shifting from first to second during a swift getaway there was a bang and it became impossible to engage any gear... After rolling to an embarrased halt I managed to fool it into 3rd which got me home.

I've spent the evening fiddling and found I can now use 1st 3rd and 5th only. The neutral position now is back where 4th would be and the shifter looks like its in neutral (ie vertical) when in 3rd. The cables are pushing and pulling as they should it just feels like something has slipped so I just cant get the leaver far enough back to engage 2, 4 and R.

Any ideas?

[Dave Eds]

Any ideas?

Yep!.......





.....Tim

[Joe]

Yep!.......

.....Tim

Whered'ya think I'm going once someone on here has told me which bits to buy?

[Foo]

(extremely) uneducated guess is that one of your shifter cables has snapped.

[tweetdriver63]

If one of your cables actually broke, you probably wouldn't be able to engage any gears.

Sounds to me like your fore-aft cable (I always forget whether that's the cross-shaft or cross-gate cable. I think it's cross-shaft.) didn't break, but slipped inside of the adjustment collar. I had the same thing happen to mine before I got the AB cables. In mine it happened because I let my son drive it one day, and he got very forceful with it trying to get it into reverse. The inside of the adjustment collar is lined with plastic ridges that prevent movement of the cable when the collar is tightened. If you force the shifter hard enough, they're not strong enough to prevent slipping, and that will result in what you describe. It was the same in mine. 1st, 3rd, and 5th worked, but no 2nd, 4th, or reverse because the shifter wouldn't go back far enough to engage them after the cable slipped. When mine did it, I was able to reverse the process. I forced the stick forward, and made it slip back to where it was supposed to be. You may be able to do the same, or you can try loosening the collar and adjusting the cable so that everything works. Even so, once the cable slips the first time, stripping of the ridges inside the collar starts, and there's no going back. It's guaranteed that it will get worse. If you can adjust the cable back where it should be, great, but you should still replace it. I highly recommend the AB cable upgrade. There's no plastic crap to go bad.

[Doug]

If one of your cables actually broke, you probably wouldn't be able to engage any gears.

Sounds to me like your fore-aft cable didn't break, but slipped inside of the adjustment collar. . . I highly recommend the AB cable upgrade. There's no plastic crap to go bad.

[al]

Yep, I reckon Chris is spot on.
Get yourself a set of ABs from WillB for about £250 IIRC.
You can fit them yourself, it's a bit fiddly but entirely doable. Shout if you'd like a hand putting them in.

[Joe]

Thanks guys,

I was pretty sure either something had slipped or a spacer had broken on the fore-aft cable as the shifter still operates just not in the right place.

I really don't want to spring £250 for new AB cables as the car has eaten £650 all ready this month so I'm going to try and fix it. If a quick fix buys me a month or two it can only be a good thing!!

[firebobby]

I do believe someone on here is selling 2 AB cables for the princely sum of £150.00 truly a bargain!!
dave