18 Apr 2012, 09:37
Hi all,
As part of the restoration work on my car I'm trying to sort out the horrible gear change. I never had to do any gearbox work on my last DeLorean other than changing the gearbox oil so even after 10 years of DeLorean ownership, this is a new one on me.
I'm not quite sure what the issue is but I found that the shift action was very stiff going into all gears and that 5th gear was absolutely impossible to find in the 'box.
I decided that while the car was being reduced to its component parts in other areas, I might as well remove the linkage in order to give it a check over and a clean up before going on to test the cable itself. The first step was to release the cable, and undo the pivot bolt and the four bolts holding the shifter mechanism to the frame:
Next, I crawled underneath the car to start undoing the relevant pivot bolts etc. I immediately noticed that the rear link rod seems to be bent at the threads:
The whole linkage removed:
I extended the 'line' of the shift rod in Photoshop and it really shows the extent to which the rod is bent:
A close-up of the rod:
I assume this isn't normal? Despite the 1982 build date, this is actually a very early car so possibly it had a duff early component fitted at the factory?
However, if you look at this picture, again with the 'line' of the shift rod extended in Photoshop, if the rod was straight then it wouldn't be able to connect to the bracket on the gearbox.
Has anyone else experienced this before?
Cheers,
Phil
As part of the restoration work on my car I'm trying to sort out the horrible gear change. I never had to do any gearbox work on my last DeLorean other than changing the gearbox oil so even after 10 years of DeLorean ownership, this is a new one on me.
I'm not quite sure what the issue is but I found that the shift action was very stiff going into all gears and that 5th gear was absolutely impossible to find in the 'box.
I decided that while the car was being reduced to its component parts in other areas, I might as well remove the linkage in order to give it a check over and a clean up before going on to test the cable itself. The first step was to release the cable, and undo the pivot bolt and the four bolts holding the shifter mechanism to the frame:
Next, I crawled underneath the car to start undoing the relevant pivot bolts etc. I immediately noticed that the rear link rod seems to be bent at the threads:
The whole linkage removed:
I extended the 'line' of the shift rod in Photoshop and it really shows the extent to which the rod is bent:
A close-up of the rod:
I assume this isn't normal? Despite the 1982 build date, this is actually a very early car so possibly it had a duff early component fitted at the factory?
However, if you look at this picture, again with the 'line' of the shift rod extended in Photoshop, if the rod was straight then it wouldn't be able to connect to the bracket on the gearbox.
Has anyone else experienced this before?
Cheers,
Phil