My Voigt 5-speed conversion

[1owner69Elan]

Stock 4-speed: 2.75"
Voigt 5 speed (with supplied stick): 5"

I have never measured the throw with my modified Quafe gear lever. I should be able to do that in the next day or so. There is a minimum about of work needed to install the Quaife lever. The Quaife pivot housing drops into the counterbore on the tail housing. The counterbore of the Voight tail housing is not as deep as the counterbore in the standard T9 tail housing. I had to cut the Quaife pivot housing down on a lathe to compensate. No big deal but something to know about ahead of time.

Thanks for the heads up on the need for some modification on the Quaife.

[pharriso]

Googling (trying to source a new saddle) I found this article (https://www.classicfordmag.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Classic-Ford-May-2011-Ford-Type-9-five-speed-guide.pdf which may be of interest.

[1owner69Elan]

Googling (trying to source a new saddle) I found this article (https://www.classicfordmag.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Classic-Ford-May-2011-Ford-Type-9-five-speed-guide.pdf which may be of interest.

Yes, I have seen this and read (and reread) it many times. It is interesting what it says about shift quality:

"Inside the casing, the standard baulk rings are made from aluminium bronze and are prone to cracking where they are slotted if there is a clutch fault, or the gearbox has been abused — ramming into gear for instance. Quickshift kits and gearlevers also exacerbate this problem, which is why BGH recommend you don’t fit one.
Finally, the gearshift quality is often described as sloppy.This is often because the plastic cup (rail clip) that sits under the gearlever breaks, allowing the lever to slop around. If intact, the shift quality should be fine."

The article identifies the saddle clip issue as well as raises a question about using a short shifter. I may be tempting fate but I am going to:

1. Use the brass saddle clip (instead of plastic). Thanks to Mark (mbell).
2. Probably fit a Quaife short shifter (perhaps with a bit longer lever).

BTW: I contacted Quaife sales. Their shipping was a silly 91(!) pounds for the short shifter. Found another supplier at much lower cost (same supplier from whom I just purchased the clutch disk).

[mbell]

Stock 4-speed: 2.75"
Voigt 5 speed (with supplied stick): 5"

Lotus 5 Speed: ~2.5"

(Assuming 3-4th throw)

[JohnCh]

When I bought my BGH Type-9 several years ago, BGH also supplied a gear lever with their Westfield installation kit which repositions the gear lever back several inches. I just measured the throw at 2.5". Prior to that I had a stock Type-9 with a Quaife short shifter that had in turn replaced a stock Westfield gear lever. The Quaife/stock Type-9 combination had heavy throws that bordered on being too much. Not so with the BGH setup. I'm not sure how much of that difference is due to gearbox internals vs. gear lever designs, but it was a significant difference. Might be worth a call to BGH to get their advice.



-John

[CBUEB1771]

I measured the throw of my converted Quaife gear lever and was quite surprised to see how long the throw is. From the neutral plane it is 2 1/4 inch forward to the 1st / 3rd plane and 2 inch back to the 2nd / 4th plane or 4 1/4 inch total. I put the Voight lever back in and found that its through was only marginally longer, perhaps 4 1/2 inch total. The Quaife conversion definitely feels more crisp and it should. Where the standard T-9 lever has a plastic pivot bal,l the Quaife conversion uses an all steel spherical bearing. My original goal was to make the gear lever appear identical to the standard for the four speed box. That was accomplished. I realize now that the machining I did lowers the pivot ball with respect to the selector rods and therefore increased the throw. I am going to muck around with this a little more and see if can raise the pivot ball and shorten the throw a bit.

[steve lyle]

Now you people have me thinking about shorter throws. Putting a short shifter on this thing might mean I won't have to modify my console, or at least minimize the mod.

I'm wondering if this guy is a USA supplier of the Quaife shifter? http://racerwalsh.com/product/3-bolt-mu ... p-shifter/

He's got both the brass and plastic shifter saddles as well...

Barney Gaylord's MGA site has info on fittingT-9 to an MGA, and has info on the stock and short shifters as well -> cmgaguru.com/mgtech/gearbox/gt403.htm

BTW - if you ever feel the need to open the top of of T9 to peer in at the glorious gears, don't try to shift the thing. And don't ask me why I know.

But, if you do take off the top, you'll see that if you feed a curved length of small diameter copper tube into the case fill hole from the rear, and keep it close to the inside of the case, you can get to the bottom, should you ever want to change the oil. It turns out that the higher gears are forward on the layshaft, so there's some room that way - with the lower gears to the rear (as well as reverse) - so no hope of getting to the bottom of the case if going from front to back. Still to be determined is if this is possible when the tranny's in the car. I think it just might barely be, but I'll let you know soon after Allan's parts show up.

[CBUEB1771]

FYI, following is a photo of the Quaife straight gear lever, disassembled. The whole thing can be broken down and put pack together in minutes. Also a photo of the modifications I made to the Quaife straight lever next to the equivalent ENFO part of the Cortina-derived four speed. The Quaife lever is made from pretty darn tough steel and threading it was precarious.

[1owner69Elan]

I checked the gear ratios on my gearbox again as I had not carefully verified the fifth gear ratio previously, figuring it was either 0.82 or 0.84, the two options offered.

What I had thought I had ordered was the BGH "Sporting Close" gear set:

2.66 / 1.75 / 1.26 / 1. 0 / 0.82

While gears 1-4 align with this specification, the fifth gear measurement is closer to 0.75 (perhaps a little less). I was surprised by this and didn't know such an option might exist. I had asked Alan for a tall fifth so maybe he used this alternative. I didn't find much on the net regarding such a ratio for the type 9, except for a Caterham specification that included a 0.75 fifth:

"Caterham 7 Sigma engine Ford Type 9 gearbox taller ratio gear set"
https://www.type9gearbox.co.uk/store/p3 ... r_set.html

So, apparently such a tall fifth gear ratio (0.75) for the Type 9 does exist. I have reached out to Alan for a clarification.

I would note that if this tall fifth is indeed installed in my box, I am quite fine with it as I was looking for an overdrive type gear for relaxed cruising. The first four gears give me the acceleration and performance up to 120 mph already. My engine with a broad (and elevated) torque curve should allow moderate acceleration in fifth and also not having to downshift into fourth for climbing (at speed). This O/D fifth with my tires/diff will yield around 3000 rpm at 70 mph and ~3400 at 80.

It is interesting that with this tall 5th the theoretical maximum speed at a 7K redline would be 160 mph. I know some on the forum have reached 140+ mph in a racing situation. With 277 bhp/ton my car perhaps might approach this theoretical 160 mph maximum but I will never know.

[steve lyle]

While waiting for the parts from Allen, I worked on the gaiter and shift lever.

My MGB gaiter came in. I took the stock hold-down plate and enlarged the hole to fit it.

For the shifter, I shortened it by about 1". By my measure it's still about 1/4" taller than stock, but it's definitely in the ballpark. I also ground some metal off of the top of the vertical portion of the shifter to give it a smooth transition to fit the gaiter. And finally I removed the black paint and polished the shift rod a bit. Most if not all of it will be covered by the gaiter, but I think I like it better this way.

I trimmed about 1/4" off of the top of the rubber gaiter - that allowed it to fit a bit more easily over the top of the vertical portion of the shift lever.

The MGB gaiter definitely gives greater freedom of movement. It can definitely flex more than the stock bellows. It came in a kit with a vinyl cover - that looks pretty cheesy, but I'm sure I can get a leather one made up around here to use instead.

[gjz30075]

Very nice! I like the 'near stock' look.

[pharriso]

Very nice! I like the 'near stock' look.

+1

[steve lyle]

I had a PM request for a pic of the lever with no gaiter - so here 'tis.

Sorry, on my computer vertical is vertical. When I attach it, it gets rotated. Unless I rotate the original - then it doesn't. Grrr.

[Foxie]

After some time since we last spoke, I had a reason to contact Alan Voigts this morning.

I thought Alan himself might now be retired, but it was he who answered the phone.

When I asked, he told me he was 81 years of age, and been out earlier today and did a 32 mile run on his pushbike.

He is now on email !

When we finished talking, he told me he was going back in to his garage to do some work on his Gilbern Invader.

I wished him many more good years !

Great to be going so strong at that age

[1owner69Elan]

As noted earlier, I found the Voigt supplied plastic shift saddle rather mangled up. I ordered a new plastic one that appears to be too small for the shaft diameter - although it will deform to fit over the shaft. I then obtained a metal alternative via a Forum member.

Here are the three different saddles:

Left: new plastic / Middle: Voigt / Right: Metal

You will note that the small tab on the Voigt unit is broken off. The white plastic one when fitted fully onto the shaft the tab is compressed inward in order to fit. The metal one, because of the strong tab, does not fully seat onto the shaft, being restricted in its downward movement.

Shaft with no saddle, above

Shaft with Voigt saddle, above

Shaft with new plastic saddle, above

Shaft with metal saddle, above, not fully pushed onto the shaft

It appears that a saddle with any tab basically does not fit the Voigt box. Here is a picture of a plastic one in a "normal" T9.

Here is a metal one installed in a Quaife T9.

In both non-Voigt cases the saddle tab sits on top without restricting the full seating of the saddle onto the shaft, unlike the Voigt T9 conversion.

At this point, I suppose I need to use one of the plastic ones (broken tab or deformable tab) or grind the tab off of the metal one. Before I modify the metal one, does anyone see anything that I may have missed?

I will ask Alan Voigt as well but I'm not having much luck getting a response lately.