4 replies to this topic

[TealAustin72]

Hi all, hopefully somebody can help!
Currently in the process of restoring a 1972 Austin Mini, with one of the pre rod shift manual gearboxes.
The car drove pretty well before work started (as well as expected for its age and with drum brakes all round) which was a pleasant surprise. However, the gear change was awful. The shift action is very vague, and has a lot of play, making finding gears very difficult and spoils the experience of driving the car.

My friend and I have found a part that, although possibly not the culprit - definitely isn’t helping matters.
The problem is, after hours trawling through specialist parts sites and forums, I have now hit a brick wall.
The parts in question are 88G223 and 88G224, which are the male and female halves of a part with a few names - “selector knuckle” or “selector toggle” are a few I’ve read.

I’ve not removed it yet, although it seems that the splines are worn in the pinch connections and are looking excess rotational play, and we can’t seem to nip them up any more to stop lateral or sliding play on the shafts at each end - meaning there is quite a lot of play in the mechanism.

It seems the male half, 88G224 is available online, most are second hand by the looks of it, but the female half are deemed ‘obsolete’. None of the specialists I have spoken to have any, one even said they’ve not had any in stock since 2005! My question is this - surely there must be a replacement available for this part, a revised version of something aftermarket to replace it? Or does anybody know a fix? It seems absolutely mad to me that the only way around it would be to replace the whole gearbox for a later type because of two little parts - or weld each end onto their respective shafts (which seems a bit of a bodge job).

I’ve attached a few images to show each part, and their locations on the gearbox (circled in red).
Hopefully somebody has a solution for me that avoids replacing the box, thanks in advance!
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[Chris1275gt]

I don't know if you've seen this:-
http://www.guess-wor...play.htm?id=451

Otherwise they pop up on eBay now and again.

[nicklouse]

I was looking a loads of them today.

 

lets have some pictures of your CLEAN so I can see the wear. As they rarely get that bad.

[Spider]

They can wear the splines when the bolts get loose.

 

We have a local supplier who lists the Male end.

 

When I had cars in with this issue, I'd just run a small weld across the tops shaft and the knuckles. It is a fiddle, but can be done in car, taking precautions with the fuel line of course.

 

Later, at overhaul time, the welds can be fairly easily ground off.

[timmy850]

I found on mine all the pinch bolts had come slightly loose. There is a similar splined knuckle at the base of the shifter, make sure they are all right first. There are also two bushes in the diff cover that the shift rod locates in, this also introduces slop

There should be loads of used ones sitting in garages all over the place