Making reverse gear easier to engage

[jakeandlizzy]

I have a 2002 supersport (5 speed) with the push down, upper left type reverse gear. Is there a way to make it easier to push down on the gear knob when finding reverse? Girl is having trouble with that and has to unbuckle and stand up a bit just to push it down!

[Paul Richards]

Gear lever is sprung loaded. Can't remember whether it is an actual spring or a piece of rubber. If you remove the gearlever you can 'weaken' the spring by moving the retainer at the top. This is either a circlip or the gearlever is 'swaged' to form a retainer.

You would need to move this up a little by either removing the circlip or filing off the 'swaging'. You could then possibly use a small jubilee clip or similar as a retainer.

To remove the gear lever is just 3 bolts, but you'll need to remove the tunnel cover which involves firstly removing gear knob and then adjusting hand brake so that lever can be moved into an upright position.

You may even find that a little lubrication may help, but you'll still have to remove the gear lever.

Probably easier to feed her 3 weetabix 😬

 

Paul Richards

Area Representative - L.A.D.S. (Lancashire and District Sevens)

LADS Website

Growing old is compulsory - Growing up is optional

 

Edited by - Paul Richards on 26 Oct 2009 11:00:03

 

Edited by - Paul Richards on 26 Oct 2009 11:00:36

[TeKK]

I have the same problem with mine.

 

I cannot push the gear lever 'down' but if I just apply pressure and do the up-and-left motion, it slots into reverse.

 

So I don't think you need much pressure to engage it. So yeah, alteration or weetabix as suggested 😬

[philwaters]

Not easy - the spring is a rubber thing which is shaped so you can't easily reduce it's height in order to reduce the pressure. You can just see it in this picture - it is the series of donut ('mmm donuts ) shaped rubber rings at the bottom (it's in the vice upside down).

 

The act of pushing it down is to get a couple of moulded pins on the ball joint to pass some slots so you can get it to the reverse position. You might be able to reduce the height of the pins so you don't have to push down so far.

 

Many years ago I had a pin shear off which meant you didn't need to push at all, it would go into reverse easily - not very nice as you tend to slide it from 1st to 2nd, pushing it to the left - which meant it would just fall into the gate now open to it

 

Phil Waters

[Paul Richards]

Phil

I may be wrong, but I seem to recall the reason for pushing the stick down is nothing to do with the pins, but rather to get the step on the gear lever just above the fork past a horizontal metal piece in the top of the gear lever housing. The step is shown clearly in your pic.

Perhaps trimming the top of the rubber doughnuts (mmmm ) may be possible???

 

Paul Richards

Area Representative - L.A.D.S. (Lancashire and District Sevens)

LADS Website

Growing old is compulsory - Growing up is optional

[jakeandlizzy]

Is it not just possible to bin the shifter with the rubber donuts and install the one on the caterham site: caterham shifter

 

or what about the quaife one (if it is not the same) here and here (see page 28 or search for "Gear Levers")

 

Bot look easier to modify if they are not already easier to push down.

[ECR]

Yes, you can use the Caterham one or the Quaiffe one (which is the same). Modification will be easier and you will also have a slightly faster change (the leverages are different)

[Paul Formston]

Hi is this not a lube problem as I have a BGH Gearbox with the caterham gear change and the gear change is really smooth and no problems with any gears and my girl friend drives the car and has no problems, but I must say I have driven other Caterham and the gear change is siff and I just thought that they needed lubeing have you tried lots of oil and grease 😬 Regards Paul