disconnected gearstick! - can somebody help?!

G

grifterkid

Member
hello there everybody. i've owned my 1972 2000TC since october and even when i purchased the car the gear shift was unbelievably stiff, sometimes i couldn't even get the car in gear. on a recent trip to london the gear lever came away from the gearbox i.e it moves up and down and round and round as though it is no longer connected. there were no loud bangs or clangs when it happened and i'm totally stumped. a friend suggested that the bushes could've gone. if this is so where can i get a new set and are they difficult to fit? could anybody out there please please help me? all the best folks...
 
Take the gearbox off - easiest way to have a look at the selectors and "shaft" bushes. Once you can see the problem then get the bits - Most likely to be selector/"shaft problem - easily accessible with box off.

If something more serious you will need the box off anyway
 
Grifter,

You may have done what I had.

The extension which bolts on to the gear box is alloy. There are 4 bolts on top of the box and at the stick itself there is 3.

When I took the engine and box out it broke in two.

If you get under the car you should be able to see if this is what has happened. I think it may be a weak point.

Colin
 
Although your symptoms aren't the same, I've the bakelite or plastic ball on the bottom of the gear lever crack and fall off. Shift effort and required travel increased considerably, and with the movement the rubber bushes allowed it was possible to pop the end of the sticke out of the selector yoke entirely.
 
Although this answer may be too late, here goes.
I have had to incidents which displayed the symptoms you describe. In one instance, the hard rubber "ball" at the end of the gearshift lever had disintegrated. In the last disaster, the metal shaft below the gearshaft ball and above the aforementioned hard rubber ball had sheared due to metal fatigue.

In each case, I determined the trouble and replaced the shaft by undoing the three bolts holding the shaft to the top of the gear selector mounting, removing the bits and pieces, replacing the shaft, and reassembling the gearshift bits.

It's the fastest and least trouble investigation of your problem.


Eric
 
^^^^which can be a real pain. Ever driven in heavy traffic changing gear with a screw driver? It's, um...., an experience....
 
Hi

I too have the same problem, very poor gear selection, and it is the bush on the tip of the gear lever that is the problem - it is missing.

I thought this problem was confined to the early S1's only, I thought the later cars had a modified gear lever!

Anyway, I have a brand new gearlever waiting to be installed, really only need the bush, but there you go. The fact that I was able to get a brand new gearlever (easily) does show that this must have been a weak spot during the car's production.

My car has only 50000 miles on the clock, was laid up for 20 years so has not had a lot of use, but it still failed...

Gary
 
Sounds like this is what happened to me on the way to Cornwall over the bank holiday. Overheating in traffic at Stone-bloody-henge as usual and suddenly I lost 1st and 2nd. 3rd and 4th went shortly after and I had to push the car off the A303. After awhile I was able to forcibly wrench the gearstick back to a position where I could select all the forward gears. Couldn't get reverse though. Made it the rest of the way to Cornwall using gravity as a reverse gear where required, put tent up, got drunk! Next day after some considerable gearstick wiggling, it slipped straight into reverse. Been kind of OK since, but sometimes I struggle to get 1st or 2nd still. Guess I'll be stripping out the gearstick too.
 
So far, so good. Stripped gearstick out, no teardrop bush at the end. Found a spare gearstick in the garage, complete with bush :laugh: . Went in no problem. Also checked the other other bushes along the selector shaft were present by pulling the inspection cover for the reverse light out on the drivers side of the transmission tunnel. All present and correct.

Gear selection now feels a lot firmer with none of the previous play and rattle that used to be present. Fingers crossed it's the end of the problem. While I was at it, also changed the oil - just in case...

For the record, I did some ringing around before finding the gear stick in the garage and was told that only Wadhams would have the bush - didn't actually get as far as calling them though.

John
 
I read an article about P6 gearboxes jamming and the trick of the trade was to realign the selector forks with a screwdriver thro' an access hole in the side of the tunnel. I can't remember more than this.
When I last had the bungs out off my gearbox tunnel I agve all the visible mechanism a good suirt with WD40 followed by spray grease
Don't know if it did any good but it's the thought that counts
Dave
 
This happenned to me too. The teardrop fell off the end of the gearstick and the resultant slack caused the box to jam in reverse. Unfortunately the car was being MoT'd at the time. Needless to say, I did not go home with a certificate and the tester was not overly pleased about having to accommodate a dead P6 for the few days it took to get the part.:cool:
 
hello there everybody, how are you & your cars? i still have this most annoying problem with my manual gearbox (the stick has come away from the gearbox itself). if there is anybody near me ( i live in walton-on-thames, surrey) please could you help me? i really want to get my car fixed but i'm not overly mechanically minded so any help/advice would be greatly appreciated! please please please help me folks! all the best. grifterkid@hotmail.com
 
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