5 Speed box: A little bit of the old "Vince Reynard magic"..

[vincereynard]

From Memory so it could be dubious!

The front cover should be fitted to preload the bearing a bit. (It's in the manual.)

Fit it by hand without gasket and check the clearance. Which you may find is all over the place.
I.E. The cover has been distorted by the 4 holding bolts.

Adjust clearance with different thickness of gasket, allowing for compression. If you need shims on the bearing , Mini diff are exactly the right dia.

What fun!

[c.garde]

Re finger discussion.

if the dimensions are right the 3-4 shifter will be very happy and the 5-rev. lever does not care , being made from steel , not brass. But of course binding must be avoided . Not too tight.
You could of course round off the lower corners of the finger EVER so slightly as well as the top of corners of the cut out in the lever, if you like so.. The aim is reducing the heavy wear of the brass cut out.
I have seen these shifters reduced to bin food as a result from this Lotus modification being carried out unnecessary heavy handed.
I remember ( and a good laugh was had by all ) that Allan Voight once advised against too much machining of the sides.
Have a look at the movement of the finger side to side: not much work is needed.

re. concentric clutch:

My first try at this did not last more than a couple of years.
Internal corrosion of the alu body saw to this. 45 Fault probably. However the cylinder was NOT anodized!!!
The replacement ( still saab ) was a cast iron item . So long so good .
And a nice clutch at that.

Now good advise of the dimensions are at hand anybody with a lathe will enjoy helping out.

Best regards
C.garde

btw: weakening the bottom coil spring by grinding the outside ?.
What an interesting idea. But will this act as stress riser? experts please?.
Yet another btw: I am sure that the ever helpful Mike Taylor would assist should the need for a replacement nose piece for the box arise.

[JonB]

Now good advise of the dimensions are at hand anybody with a lathe will enjoy helping out.

Anyone got a lathe?

btw: weakening the bottom coil spring by grinding the outside ?.
What an interesting idea. But will this act as stress riser? experts please?.

I ground down the 5th gear plunger spring on the side of the gearbox. The spring at the bottom (5th gear detent) is too small to muck about with a grinder. As to stress risers.. well I did think that but a replacement spring costs something like ?2 to replace and if it breaks I can't see it stopping the gearbox from functioning (in other words it won't strand me away from home).