Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

hello everyone,
wondering if i can get some advise on a balky trans/shift lever...ive been expireancing a stiff shift lever and not sure what it might be.
I changed the trans fluid with the recommendend weight fluid(red line synthetic) and its still slow rowing thru the gears and requires a fair amt. of effort to select a gear. The clutch shifts fine and the trans gears all work fine ,no grinding, syncros nice and smooth on downshifts....just the amt of effort to get thru the gears seems unusually high....any ideas?

Are we talking about a heavy gearchange (ie. a lot of effort to move the lever) or a baulky gearchange (the gears crunching or kicking back at the lever when you attempt to change)?

Are you sure the clutch is disengaging fully? The symptoms sound an awful lot like clutch drag.

Make sure the pushrod/release arm clearance is properly adjusted at the bellhousing and try bleeding the clutch hydraulics.

Is the gearshift just as heavy without the engine running? If so you could try uncrewing, cleaning and lubricating the nylon 'ball and cup' assembly where the gearlever enters the gearbox (doable from inside the car, if you remove the transmission tunnel top). It could just be that grime and dried grease has built up on this to the point that there is excessive resistance, but obviously you'd expect that to be quite a gradual process, so the symptoms wouldn't arise suddenly.

Other than that the only thing I can think of is bent selector forks, maybe?

mintsprint, thanks for the reply....tes its more of a heavy gear change that requires effort...this has slowly progressed ,so im inclined to think its the first suggestion you made.....will try cleaning as this may be what it
thanks ,davidis

Could also be the input bushing/bearing going dry and keeping a tighter hold on the input shaft. It'll feel like the clutch is not releasing. Bleed the system first and make sure the fork is moving fully, as mintsprint suggested.

Greg Z
'72 Sprint