17 replies to this topic

[paulrockliffe]

I actually meant 3 or 4 inches above the plastic ball bit thingy

I know what you meant, the rubber isolation part is about 6 inches long and starts from roughly 2 inches above the ball. The bend will have to be quite far up the stick.

The extension fits to the top.

You wanted to know how the stick is removed, it's very simple. There is a bayonet mounted cap holding it in place. You don't need to get under the car, just lift up the gaiter and twist the cap then it lifts away.

Oh right ok. I'm a little confused though, wouldn't thte rubber just bend too and then maybe not damp vibration quite as well? I must be missing something as I can't imagine having a bit of rubber down the middle would have any damping proerties at all. Please enlighten me.......

[dklawson]

I haven't seen the Mini rod-change shifters like Dan is describing but on other cars I've owned, the part of the lever that you see is hollow at the bottom and that hollow space is filled with a rubber sleeve that's bonded in place. The portion of the lever that goes into the shift linkage is bonded in the center of the rubber sleeve. What you have is a coaxial assembly with the two metal bits separated by a thick layer of heavy rubber.

As Dan said, most shift levers are made of hardened or at least high carbon steel so that you can't bend them out of shape when/if you're slamming between gears.

I think you will run into all sorts of problems if you try and bend the bottom of the lever where the rubber is. You may crack the outer hardened part of the lever, you may split and extrude the rubber out of the assembly, or you might just bend it enough to pinch through the rubber and make a lever that vibrates a lot and annoys you with rattles.

[Dan]

The gearstick is in two parts. The section coming from the selector housing is actually a tube, not a stick. The stick that comes out of the top is held centrally in this tube with a gap of around 1/2" all the way around it and rubber is poured in between the two to fill the space. The stick you hold is actually entirely isolated from the stick fitted into the selector by the rubber.

Doug and I were replying at the same time!

Yeah, what he said! 'Twasn't me who said the stick is hardened though but it probably is. I would imagine the tube section at least is hardened if only by being filled with hot rubber and quenched rather than intentionally hardened on purpose. At the very least it's got to be pretty strong steel as it takes a pounding, seems it can be bent though as in the photo above.

Here's a photo I have outrageously nicked from Mini Spares of a gearstick. You can see the isolator, I was wrong in that the tube is part of the upper section and is bonded over the lower section but you can see the problem. You will not be able to bend the thick chunky bit, you have to bend it higher up as in the photo above from Grayedout. You could try giving it a further bend at the bottom where it is bent already but I think you'd have trouble getting the bayonet collar over it if you did and you might interfere with its operation.

Edited by Dan, 13 March 2008 - 08:16 PM.