Changing the AB cable ends to rose joints

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Changing the AB cable ends to rose joints

Postby chrisP » Tue 04.11.2014, 13:18

Does anyone know if it is possible to replace the nylon bushes on the gearbox end of the AB motorsport cables with rose joints (similar to Bob's design of a few years ago) I thought that the cables would free up over time, but they haven't and I'm looking for an improvement without having to buy new cables.

Cheers
Chris
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Re: Changing the AB cable ends to rose joints

Postby chrisP » Thu 22.09.2016, 11:07

I will answer my own question and hope that it helps some one out. I was able to modify one of the two cables at the gearbox end to accept a rose joint (it was the left - right plane one). I used a M6 -M8 thread converter to accomplish the, but there was not enough room to do it on the fore - aft cable. The result is a far better shift mechanism that self centers. I have this fitted with the short shift as well, but I cut the heavy round weight off.
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Re: Changing the AB cable ends to rose joints

Postby John_W » Thu 22.09.2016, 22:21

Chris,
Sounds good. Can you tell us what parts you used and where to get them. My AB cables are still stiff in the cross-gate plane, and this would improve things.

As an aside, why did you lose the counterweight on the short-shift?

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Re: Changing the AB cable ends to rose joints

Postby Brit-Car-Nut » Thu 22.09.2016, 23:16

John_W wrote:Chris,
Sounds good. Can you tell us what parts you used and where to get them. My AB cables are still stiff in the cross-gate plane, and this would improve things.
John

Looks like an 8mm male rod end (probably with the threaded part cut short to fit in the space). You will want a Stainless Rod End with a Teflon race
8mm jam nut (at least zinc plated, but stainless is better)
"custom" female/female barrel adapter to convert the original AB shaft (now threaded to 6mm) to the 8mm rod end.
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Re: Changing the AB cable ends to rose joints

Postby chrisP » Fri 23.09.2016, 11:03

Ah pretty much a spot on guess,

I used one of these - cut down slightly for the space - I couldn't find a stainless steel version

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/M8-to-M6-REDU ... 1212402068

then M6 and M8 half nuts

Then I used something similar to this - I believe the spigot from the gearbox selector is 8mm

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/M8-x-1-25-RH- ... SwMtxXvzy1

I had to cut down the thread slightly

Now looking I have fount that I can get stainless thread reducers, so I could reduce the thread on the rose joint to 6mm and use it on the fore - aft cable. I will try that in the winter.

I will say that when I did the work I had the clam shell off and it made life a little easier but if you pull the cables into the wheel well, it will be possible to do.

I cut the weight off to save a little weight - i have been told that it improves the feel, with it in place but this wasn't a priority for me. The shift feel for me is fine now the rose joint is in place.
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Re: Changing the AB cable ends to rose joints

Postby John_W » Sun 25.09.2016, 13:44

Chris, John,
Thanks for the info. :smt023 Looks like a winter job to keep me from getting bored!
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Re: Changing the AB cable ends to rose joints

Postby John_W » Fri 14.10.2016, 11:56

Chris, John,

Yesterday I cleared my way in to the selector mechanism and removed it to have a look at the viability of following your example. I found that the pin onto which the cross-gate cable fits is indeed 8mm diameter (m8 size), however is too short to be able to fit a retaining clip (even without a washer) above a rose joint. As I presume that you have fitted some sort of retainer to keep the rose joint on the pin, did you replace this pin with a longer version, or re-drill the pin much nearer its end to accept a clip?

I measured the pin as 16mm long (above the shoulder which bolts it onto the plate), with the clip hole drilled 10mm above the shoulder. All the m8 rose joints I have found are 12mm thick, which means that they cover the original hole and leave only 4mm of pin to allow fitting of washers above and below the rose joint and to re-drill a new clip hole (see photos). This would put the new hole pretty near the end of the pin where there is a bevelled end. Also, I don't think I could drill a new hole in the hardened pin.

How did you get over this?

John
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Re: Changing the AB cable ends to rose joints

Postby Brit-Car-Nut » Fri 14.10.2016, 13:49

John: I don't know how Chris did his, but I use a "studded" rod end with an 8mm to 10mm adapter to compensate for the square hole that you will find in the crossgate lever when you remove the original pin.

Crossgate.jpg


Or, you can buy a rod end stud to use with your existing rod end and using the same adapter fit it that way.

M8 Stud.jpg


If there are a few of you that want to do this to improve the AB cable issue, I have some 8mm rod end studs and can make up some steel adapters.

I will be in the UK in around 10 days if anyone wants me to bring some with me I will be at DN10 5AA from Oct 24 thru Oct 27. They would be $15.00 of £11.50 each

I can ship them to anyone from the US at $15.00 + $15.00 for First Class Postage or if anyone wants to re-distribute to save postage costs, I can put 5 in the same package for $75.00 + $15.00 First Class Postage.
Priority Mail Postage is $35.00. Probably more than 5 would not change the shipping price, just figure out how many want one and multiply x 15 for the cost and then add the postage of choice.

If anyone wants to meet me and pick up anything small, EMAIL me with details and I will see if I can carry some stuff with me on the trip over.

I also have a short-shift kit that will directly bolt onto the earlier Bob B. cable kits that eliminates all of the pins in deference to using the rod end studs (they create the correct articulation clearances so the spherical bearings can move correctly). This is $135.00 + postage if anyone is interested. I have a post for these elsewhere under Transmission and Clutch.
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Re: Changing the AB cable ends to rose joints

Postby John_W » Fri 14.10.2016, 15:10

John,

Thanks for the info. So a new pin/stud is probably the way to go. I'll wait to see if Chris has a cunning alternative before I send you an email to ask for one.

By coincidence, a good friend of mine lives about ten miles away from where you'll be visiting in October. I was there last month in the Elan. It's some nice countryside, if a bit on the flat side, but has good pubs to compensate.

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Re: Changing the AB cable ends to rose joints

Postby Brit-Car-Nut » Fri 14.10.2016, 16:16

I am going to finish gutting a M100 tub/chassis I purchased 4 years ago but couldn't get back until now. Much shorter trip than I would like but I am trying to fit it in between my monthly hospital visits.

Phil W. is meeting me and donating his time to help me get everything usable off the hulk and then boxed and ready to ship over here.

For my shift cable kits I use all female rod ends because the adapters can end up much shorter since they are going inside the ends and that way you have a lot of room for adjustment.

I would appreciate it if you would measure the distance from center of the hole in the fore-aft fitting to the visible step on the shaft going to it. Also what is the diameter of that bit of shaft?

Fore-Aft.jpg


I was going to see if I could find a close quarters rod end that would work with a custom adapter. I will have some excess small parts of the shift cable kits left over once production stops as I run out of the larger/expensive parts. Maybe I can re-purpose them into something useful. There are a LOT of AB cable kits in use and nobody was very happy with their stiction issues.
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Re: Changing the AB cable ends to rose joints

Postby John_W » Fri 14.10.2016, 17:32

John,
There is no step on the shaft of my fore/aft AB cable. I pushed the rubber cover as far back as I could to check (you can see the wear mark where the crimped end usually sits). The diameter of the shaft is 6mm.

I have some of the earliest AB cables, so perhaps there was a change in later production, or perhaps the apparent step on Chris's picture is just a mark.

John
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Re: Changing the AB cable ends to rose joints

Postby KevB » Fri 14.10.2016, 17:43

I did exactly this mod a couple of years ago and although the Crossgate pin is too short, if you use the Shift pin instead you will find it is longer.
Lotus Ref:A100F6043F from SJ Sportscars £1.12

Link

Shift Cable Pin.png
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Re: Changing the AB cable ends to rose joints

Postby John_W » Fri 14.10.2016, 17:50

Aha! The cunning alternative!
Thanks, Kev.
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Re: Changing the AB cable ends to rose joints

Postby Brit-Car-Nut » Fri 14.10.2016, 18:09

Kev: You are right, but the rod end works best when it is secured so ALL motion is performed on the outside of the spherical ball. if it isn't, the pin could become the center of rotation and that has a friction fit, so you won't get the full benefit of the bearing design. Finding the exact selection of washers to secure (squeeze) the ball to prevent it from spinning on the pin is not always easily accomplished.

On the shift kits, I thread the adapter and loctite it to the studded rod end so it can't possibly spin on the threads and use a lock-nut on the stud to keep it tight.

I also use teflon race rod ends to minimize friction at the ball.

Thanks John. If you want to try to replace the fore-aft end too, you could use a female rod end (the thread end is usually longer than necessary, so you can cut it back a bit) and center drill an 8mm bolt to tap it to 6mm and then thread it into the rod end with some loctite and thread the rod section of the cable calculating how much of the rod section you need to cut down so you have at least 10mm of thread in the adapter. You will also want to use a jam nut to keep the cable length secure.
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Re: Changing the AB cable ends to rose joints

Postby Rice crispy » Sat 15.10.2016, 00:06

John I have AB cables and short shift so would the above improve things? And what else would I need to purchase and do
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Re: Changing the AB cable ends to rose joints

Postby Brit-Car-Nut » Sat 15.10.2016, 04:42

I am assuming you have one of Dave's Short-shift kits? Not the AB Short-shift kit?

First thing I would do is make sure the bushing IDs are just over 8mm in diameter. A drill bit is not a great way to do that since it is possible to elongate the holes. A decent high temp moly grease will also improve the friction issue.

Nest thing I would suggest is to raise the abutment plate around 1/4" (6mm) above the gearbox using washers or a spacer plate. In my kits I provide an abutment bracket that has had the cable holes raised 6mm from the Lotus S2 bracket and I slot the mounting hole nearest the firewall and the hole facing near side (the pointed end) around 6mm as well so the bracket will be able to rotate clockwise a bit (when looking down at it) to better align the cables with the gearbox shifter levers. YOu should align the cables as closely as you can.

The cable end bushings at the gearbox levers are not real happy if they are not perpendicular to the pins and aimed off at even a slight mis-angle doesn't help either.

If that doesn't make it much better, then you can cut off the bushed ends, tap the attachment shafts and rebuild the cables using rod ends like the thread is suggesting. Doing it on the car is a task since there is not much room. It is important that the effective lengths of the cables aren't altered or the adjustment will be a lot more difficult. I honestly don't think I would even fit in the tight space available to modify the cables in place and would probably take them out so I have an accurate center to center measurement to be sure to put things back in alignment.
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Re: Changing the AB cable ends to rose joints

Postby chrisP » Wed 23.11.2016, 13:19

A good find there KevB, that is what I did, as I had the shortshift kit I was able to swap the shift pin out of the old mechanism. But as you can buy them separately then that would mean that you don't need the short shift.
Brit-Car-Nut, there is no step in the linkage, that is just a mark from the rubber boot.

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Re: Changing the AB cable ends to rose joints

Postby John_W » Thu 24.11.2016, 23:51

I did this job a couple of weekends ago. Thanks to Chris, John & Kev without whom I would not have had the confidence to cut the end off my expensive AB cables.

The job was just as much fun as running gear cables in an Elan always is, but just that bit more awkward as the AB cables are so much stiffer than the originals. Eventually, I gave up trying to remove the cross gate cable entirely, so that I could do the job on the bench, and just pulled enough through (both ends were disconnected) to allow me to do the butchering/surgery under the bonnet with a nice big protective board and a sheet covering all the under-bonnet stuff to prevent any accidental cutting of bits that shouldn't be cut or swarf getting places it shouldn't.

The actual cutting of the crossgate cable rod, tapping it and assembling the rose joint and female adaptor sleeve went very quickly and easily. Replacing the cable was almost as much fun as persuading it out.

Anyway, some thoughts and comments:
    1) Fitting the rose joint has improved the ease of gearchange with my set-up of AB cables and Dave's short shift.
    2) I used a stainless M8 teflon-lined male rose joint with a double-female M8-M6 threaded connector sleeve and half-thickness lock nuts. The rose joint spherical ball is quite stiff to move. The rose joint fits on locating pin A100F6043F from SJ Sportscars, which replaces the shorter standard crossgate pin.
    3) The gear change with the AB cables is not as easy as with the old standard cables, even with the rose joint fitted. Perhaps some further work on aligning the gearbox-mounted cable bracket might help. The problem is that moving/wiggling the gear lever left/right in neutral is not as "free" as with standard cables. Coming out of 5th or reverse, the gear lever will not self-centre back to the 3rd-4th position; coming out of 1st or 2nd, it will spring back to the 3rd-4th position fine. Archie reported similar problems with AB cables in this thread (even allowing for the poor condition of the second-hand cables he was fitting).
    4) Before I fitted the rose joint, undue effort was needed to move the gear lever across to the left to the 1st/2nd gear position. That has been cured by the rose joint modification (and by slightly shortening the cross gate cable to prevent it from hitting the engine on its curve up from the chassis box to the cable bracket mounted on the gearbox).
    5) When fitting the rose joint, I removed an extra half inch of the cross-gate inner cable rod before tapping it for the M8/M6 adapter. When originally fitting the AB cables, I found it very awkward to re-fit the gear lever assembly, i.e. to re-insert it into the chassis box far enough to allow the four allen-headed gear lever mounting bolts to be located back into the chassis. The cables seemed to be hitting something, but I could not see any obstruction within the chassis tunnel. Once everything was connected and adjusted, I noticed that the cross-gate cable was hitting the sharp edge of engine where the engine and gearbox join. The outer cable was marked, but not damaged. By shortening the cable slightly, the curve of the cable is now away from the engine, and re-inserting the gear lever assembly into the chassis tunnel was easier (I did not feel as though I was forcing it).
    6) I was surprised at how little clearance there is between the rose joint threaded adapter and actuator shaft that comes out of the gear selector box (and which the gear cables are controlling). I hadn't thought to check it before I made this modification, however the clearance is just OK - it couldn't have stood a thicker rose joint/adapter sleeve assembly.
    7) The gearshift is good and precise, but is not perfect, as its movement is stiffer than I like. I am therefore looking forward to more fiddling to try to align things better at the gearbox bracket, in the hope that this might help free up the action. However, the sliding movement of the AB cables is much less smooth than the standard cables, even when they are not connected to anything.
    8 ) I have no plans to modify the fore-aft gear selector cable, as I am happy with its operation and feel.
    9) Whatever I manage to do, this is all just trying to make the best of the AB cables/Dave's short shift set up that I have. If I was starting from scratch (or a broken set of standard cables) then I would get a set of Brit-Car-Nut's cables and short shift. These look to be beautifully engineered to address all of the issues I have encountered and they have been put together as a matched set.

I've attached a couple of poor photos to illustrate.

John
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