[quote="I have a 'Bill's Isuzuperformance Short shift' on my Elan that's been on a SORN a couple of years. That uses the standard cables, a different cable anchor bracket to compensate for the relocated pins on the Cross Shaft Lever and Bellcrank Lever. The lever is very tight and precise but a bit too short as the difference between the 1st/2nd gate and the 3rd/4th gate is very tight and sometimes I've gone from 2nd to 5th, not 3rd, if I wasn't concentrating.
Bill's kit came with modified levers already in a selector housing so I still have the original selectors & housing so I'm considering modifying those in a similar manner to fit my SE which is in daily use - it doesn't look too challenging. I'm thinking I might move the pivots about 80% of the distance towards 'Bill's position' so I get a short throw but not a very short throw and make a new anchor bracket that's appropriate to the revised pin positions.
I'll make notes and take photos so I can post as a Project if it works.
Phil[/quote]
That would be interesting to see Phil. I have done dozens of short shifts on Honda's (different system entirely) for people but personally i never liked the feel of it, a slight shortening on the Elan though sounds interesting so it would be good to see your version.
Henk-Jan, you are probably right, the free play in the box itself will also be a contributor although i would imagine it is fairly slight, from my own observations i would say the biggest contributor is the balljoint in the lever itself and the way it is set up. From what i have seen so far in other vehicles, the Elan's is a poor design compared to some modern ones, if we can find one that is an easy mod then it has to be a great leap forward, same with the cables, very rarely do i hear of any modern cars which regularly break gear cables and taking a walk round them shows very very few that have been removed, backing up that theory, so there are multitudes of them in breakers yards, and so many different types that there is bound to be something that can be used for our cars, and if there is, a pair of gear cables from a breaker are going to be somewhere in the region of 20 or 30 quid, (after all ,it is only a bit of wire in a sheath
) now that would be good news.
Muley... I know exactly what you mean, and if its anything like my Rifle bolt it must be awesome
.