Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

hi- and help!

Can anyone out there give me the lowdown on the Spyder gear linkage kit? I cannot use their off the shelf offering because it won't the chassis for which it's intended and looking at a few illustrations of their item it doesn't seem certain it could be altered to fit so I might be forced to "invent" one.

I'm not at all clear just what they use to allow both the gearlever to pivot and the rest of the linkage. I've thought of using some sort of flange mounted spherical bearing but run up against the problem of how to fasten both the gearlever to the bearing (grubscrew?) and the other pivoting part of the linkage. I imagine a rosejoint of a kind might work on the lever but as for the other part-well .......

Some info from a zetec converted car would be a big help in clarifying things (a bit at least).

Regards

John

John, not sure if this helps you out or not. Were you enquiring about MT75's?

Pics of my Spyder supplied MT75 in a Plus 2 with Twin Cam in a Spyder chassis below. All covered up now by the body.

The linkage is as supplied by Spyder. The shift lever ended up slightly aft of the stock position, but pretty close; minor 'adjustment' to the body required.

The photo's show a grub screw and machined threaded attachment of the shift lever just above the top swivel joint, and a machined wrench flat on the top lever section. I had these details done locally; in Spyder form the shift lever was one part and could only be removed by unbolting the fork at the bottom. I added the secondary attachment on the advice of Gerry, who pointed out the shift lever would have to be removed somehow to pull the engine and transmission with the body in place. This would be very difficult as the lever is permanently attached to the machined fork piece that bolts to the shift rod going into the transmission.

The shift lever also did not have threads for the knob, so I had the machinist add these as well. Also shortened the lever a bit I believe.

The shift boot shots (kind of lousy pic's) give an idea of how far back the assembly ended up, and the plastic piece I glued in to cover the boot gap.

Sorry, I don't know the correct terms for the parts in the linkage, but hopefully you get the idea.

Overall, shift action is good once the box warms up. I have some noise from the tramsmission, but it does not seem to be caused by the linkage set-up.