Hi all,

Got an 84 GLEi and have noticed that second gear needs to be very precisely changed, otherwise it feels very 'baulky' could this be a linkage prob or am I looking at the box??

Cheers in advance

Gaz

Could well be linkage trouble - they do have a reputation for the weld breaking on the front part of the linkage beneath the stick itself. My old car did this, with the linkage working correctly the gearchange (in comparison) is fairly slick.

Although saying that, my 1st-2nd gear change is nowhere near as nice as say 2nd to 3rd... and it's not a linkage problem afaik

I had this on a mk3, got so bad that I had to move the stick to first gear first before slotting it down into second. Shortly afterwards the whole gear assembly dropped down into the transmission tunnel requiring welding...

To get 1st and 2nd you can change the bracket under the gaiter. This can creep over, over time and cause it to be stiff.
Adam

My 360GLT takes a bit of muscle to get it into 2nd.

That gaitor mentioned...

What is it? The leather/vinyl thing around the gear lever? Is the bracket that moves over accessible from inside the car?

Take out that frame that has this leather like 'bag' attached, under that you can see another frame, take that out too, after that you will see this gaitor think, it is attached with two allen bolts, just loose a bit those and move that thing so that gears go better in and put all together again.

I just stuffed mine up last week, the brakect holding the gearshift had snapped and i took everything apart and welded it, when putting it back together i didn't line the bracket we are talking about up properly and now my shift is stiff, what happens is that on your shifter there is a plastic bush that runs against this bracket, when you pull up the lever under the gearknob to put the car in reverse it lifts this bush and allows the shifter to travel left into the reverse position, if you don't align the braket up properly, or maybe over time your bush wears slightly, when you push left to choose first or second, you push into this bracket but it is set a bit further left of where the gear shifter needs to be to go into gear, so when you push up or down to choose the gear you aren't pushing into the slot properly, remove the leather boot, under that is a rubber boot on a frame, lift that up, you will see the bracket in question with a reverse switch on it, two allen bolts hold it down, i suggest making where it is by drawing an outline with a texta, then loosen the bolts and move the bracket right a small amount, retighten and try to shift to see if it feels better.

Sorry for the long post, hope it makes sense.