elan+2 130s NBW 190M

[Satyr Nouveau]

Hi

Great thread. For me its also all about the driving experience. I really do not like cleaning cars, and I will park anywhere so a few dings and dongs are to be welcomed as another one is never such a big deal.

It reminds me of my first plus 2 which was quite a scabby car what with the yellow paint that would slowly remove itself after every jet wash. I used to drive that car to the station (about 5 -7 mins) all year round. It ran so badly in the winter that I fitted a "Webasto Hi Top" petrol water heater in the nose cone. That really helped and also meant some immediate heat in the cabin. In fact the memory of winters in that car has spurred me to fit an electric element (from Fiesta mk7) in the heater of my current +2 project.

All the best

Berni

Hi Berni,

Thanks for your reply as well.
Rough running has always been a regular feature of the T/Cam.
From memory, a lot was down to short journeys where the engine was in good condition. If the journeys are not long enough to get the engine stinking hot the way it was designed to run, a nasty build up of soot and oil takes place on the ''sparkies''. The more it builds up, the longer and harder you have to run it to burn off the crud. Maximum oil is getting past the rings when the engine is cold and the running temp is too low to burn it off . The fuel does not burn properly either and the spark starts to intermittently short out on the oil deposit and unburned hydrocarbon creating a vicious circle.
Sometimes, what they used to call, softer plugs could FIX, but you would have to change the plugs back to normal if you intended to use the machine with urgency or in anger.

Regards
Satyr Icon

[The Veg]

Fantastic stuff, thanks for reviving the thread! Satyr, I'd love to see a picture or two of your car just to put an image to the description. Glad to hear that it's seeing a long and wonderful life of use.

Interesting too about the five-speed shifting. I have one of the few five-speeds over here in the USA, which I installed about a year ago into a Plus 2 that had come with a four-speed. The four was generally okay, though I found its shifting a bit notchy- maybe it was headed toward needing a rebuild? It had about 82K miles on it.

I went with the five because of the nature of driving in this country, where if you want to get anywhere beyond your local surroundings some high-speed cruising may well be required, but even on less than full motorways I constantly found myself wanting one more gear and having only four felt like something was missing, like unfinished business. After all that I'd read about the fives shifting a tad less beautifully than the fours I figured that was acceptable, as the increased utility (not just having fifth but also the lower ratio of first) would outweigh that.

The plastic mounting threads on the Ford shift lever used with the fives are a real problem though. Mine came with threads that were so worn that screws through the metal 'flower petal' tabs on the base of the lever had been employed to hold it in place! I sought a new lever and found that the only choice available came from a Turkish seller on eBay...bought that and found that the plastic threads were undersized, enough so that they didn't even pretend to engage the threads in the cover. I then turned to one of the 'racing' levers meant for Mk II or III Cortinas, the only compatible thing I could find. This works and has a nice straight-cut metal thread that stays secure in the cover but has two of its own problems: the first was that the lever came straight and had to be bent quite a bit if I didn't want to punch my knuckles through the dashboard when going into the odd-numbered gears. The second problem is that this lever places the spherical bearing a bit higher than in the Ford lever, giving the short throws that racers like (and which I found to make the lateral movement in the 2-3 shift a bit tricky) but also really increasing the amount of strength required to make some of the shifts- in fact I have to give it a pretty good shove to engage first gear. I can live with it but I think a better lever would make it much more pleasant. I've pondered two ideas, one is having a lever made that duplicates the 'racing' lever in every respect except for having the bearing located about an inch lower, the other being to have a new base made for the Ford lever out of metal instead of plastic, however much of the quality in the other components of the Turkish Ford lever seems a little suspect so I lean toward the first idea. It's not a high priority though as since I am not a machinist it'll cost money to have someone make and my budget is a little tight these days.

But other than the issues with the lever I do like the five-speed!

[Satyr Nouveau]

]Hi Veg,
I also have had to resort to 2 X 1/8in screws between the 'petals ' of the metal Daisy to keep the threaded plastic cup in the threaded alloy plate and to stop it from unscrewing. Managed to get the cup to screw in tightly by winding PTFE plumbing tape around the threads of the cup. It took several trials to get the number of windings just right so that a special tool was needed to get the Daisy 'petals' flush with the plate and very tight.
The PTFE tape needs to be the heat resistant plumbing type for compression joints in things like central heating pipes, not the PTFE for gas thread.

This fixed the problem for about 15 years. I think you are looking for a more elegant and original fix.
You may be able to resource a good stick and pivot cup with functional thread here on this site. The ones I have seen on the ''Bay'' were invariably overpriced.
The box I have rebuilt and used for my recent trip to Portugal was from the ''Bay'', I paid £137 for it, the seller was kind enough to declare it had a tight spot in every gear when turned by hand but it had a perfect condition lever and pivot cup. I have not used the lever or cup, I prefer the modification I have devised most recently and has proved successful over the latest trip at least. The Ebay box is from a 1979 Eclat, possibly 77 in my opinion. The Elite also had a lever identical to the +2. If you resource a good assembly from these options, don't be put off by the plastic saddle fitted to the hardened fork, it just pulls off and the fork is same as +2.

I wish I could offer you the gear lever but I intend to rebuild my original box and keep it as a spare or sell it. It would probably be more marketable with lever included.
If you get really stuck and can compromise a bit, I can take a photo of my latest mod. Essentially two curved metal plates that match the circumference of the 'Daisy' and are secured by the two nearest bolts. I still have the PTFE to keep the oil in and the two small screws between the 'petals'.

As for the shifting, I think the fork at the bottom of the lever needs to make deeper contact into the brass shuttle. This would improve the advantage it has against the ball on the end of the selector shaft.
The lever is spring loaded toward the roof of the car. If you overcome this spring loading by pushing the lever deeper into the box when shifting, you may find the shift a lot easier. Not all the boxes benefited from this for some reason. If yours does, you could try removing the circlip securing the spring material to the shaft of the lever. Chances are the shaft is seized to what should be a sliding collar and removing the circlip will have no effect. If the shaft is loose in the spring, it will drop slightly deeper into the box without having to force it in deeper. The lever will feel a bit strange without the spring loading but if the shifting is noticeably easier this would be proof positive Lotus messed up on the shift leverage calculations.
Where you go from there is an engineering problem. You could try shimming the lever with a spacer between the back of the fork and the ball in the plastic cup but this would increase the spring load pressure.
If you ever have a new cup machined, get rid of the Daisy and make the threaded surface half an inch longer so the whole assembly goes that much deeper into the box.

If you have the time and know how to play with this problem you could wind up solving one of the major complaints against the 5 Sped Box. After all, these same cogs, shafts and bearings work fine in the Maxi, the only real difference is the shift leverage.

Incidentally, I opted for the S130/5 for the same reasons you did but I also changed to a 3.5: 1 diff.
When I wanted to play boy racer I had a fabulous XR 2 for the short journeys.
I'm a Yankee ''outa NY'' myself so I know what those long straight roads can be like. A lot of people here in ''Jolly Old'' don't quite realize that driving across the US is like driving from Brighton to Newcastle 7 or 8 times.

Will try to post some photos when I find out how to do it. Be prepared for a shock. There is at least one other member who will testify to this.

Regards,
Satyr Icon

[The Veg]

Thanks Satyr, very interesting, good stuff to chew on and contemplate!

[mbell]

I think a lot of the slop in the shift is in the ball assembly. I think replacing that with a spherical bearing, ideally with some height adjustment for the bearing and stick would allow removing a lot of the slack and adjusting effort/throw. Probably not take it to 4 speed level but much better.

I have a design in my head for that but an international move has taken me away from from my easy source of getting the parts made. That and been busy means I've not progressed it, more than first cad drawing.

[Satyr Nouveau]

Hi mbell,

The ball at the end of the selector shaft and the cavity in the brass shuttle that it interacts with, is just one of the sources of the ''slop''.
I don't know the number of 5 speed +2 Elans that were produced but I suspect it was a very limited production run and consequently it is reasonable to assume many of the components that were not common to the Maxi, will have been individually machined and the ''spec drift'' associated with this method of production was necessarily accepted. Tooling up costs to produce the irregular tract in the brass shuttle to the accuracy of the irregular tracts formed by the inner and outer races of a CV joint would have been prohibitive.

Any re-design of the ball/shuttle would need to retain the existing ability to be re-engaged if the gear lever is accidentally removed without putting the box ''in gear'' first. As it is, the ball can be re-engaged with the shuttle using a wire hanger. An owner would not be a happy bunny if he had to virtually remove the engine and g/box to remedy that situation.

The second ''slop'' point is at the fork end of the gear lever. The later Elite/Eclat design eliminated much of this play by fitting a plastic 'saddle' to the fork and a correspondingly smaller diameter steel bar in the brass shuttle. This also eliminated the metal to metal rattle generated at this point. The outer contact of the fork with the brass shuttle seems not to have been altered.
If I could fit the Elite/Eclat tail shaft casing to the +2, I would do it in an instant. It is a much better machined and engineered component. The linkages have been re-designed with a 20degree alteration to the angle of the ball in central position (3rd 4th shift slot).

The third ''slop'' point is at the box end of the selector shaft where a virtually identical ball has had two parallel flat sides machined to produce the selector 'tongue' that drops into the three synchro shifters. Not much can be done here without altering the size and shape of the selector tongue. Very risky.

One point I feel almost obliged to mention here is the shimming and correct operation of the outermost synchro shifter. It operates the engagement and disengagement of the reverse 'idler dog' and the 5th gear sychro ring via a pivoted lever and a shaft right in the bottom of the box. This shaft is in turn restricted in it's operation by the reverse lock-out mechanism which I have found to be problematic in 10 or 12 of the 30 odd 5 speed boxes I have had to deal with decades ago.
When I purchased my Ebay 5 speed for re-build I had a long look at this site just see if any good mods or alternative components etc. have come to light since I last dealt with one of these boxes. The only reference to this sometimes malfunctioning component I found was a mod. to the circlip retaining design mentioned in a well produced PDF. by an engineer. The operation and malfunction of the reverse lock-out mech. seems not to be covered by anybody after 50 years of living with the misery it can give. At the same time I noticed a number of contributors to this forum declaring the 5/Reverse shift is stiff, difficult, normal etc. and that they will just have to live with it. The box I bought on ebay suffered from this malfunction big time and is probably the reason it was permanently removed from the car. It also had a tight spot but I have no idea if this manifested before or after the box was removed. It could easily have been either.
The fix is tricky and difficult even if the box is out of the car, if not, the removal and re-fit is a headache of it's own so I won't detail it here. I doubt if many or any would go through the ordeal if they can still get 5 and reverse even if it is stiff.
If you come up with a viable mod. to correct any of the ''slop'' feel free to run it in front of me if you want.

Satyr Icon

[JonB]

The gearshift action of the 5-speed box can be improved. See viewtopic.php?t=45077

[mbell]

Interesting stuff Satyr, will need to spend some more time taking it in and processing it.

My main focus at the minute is improving the gearstick. I've a modded one like Jon showed in his link that remove a lot of flex from the bushing. I've got as far as playing with fusion 360 to design a replacement for the ball/retainer setup on the gear stick with a spherical bearing. I suspect that will be a bit improvement.


After that targets would be brass shuttle to gearstick stick and modding selector forks to have consistent/tight opening for the tongue.

I've currently got the box out of my car (and spare in the car) and hoping to make some improvements while its out.

[Satyr Nouveau]

Hi Jon and mbell,
That discussion is definitely one I missed. It does however contain what seems to be the mandatory adulteration of the D-dent spring application on the 5/Reverse rod. The rest of it is about modifications we, as a Lotus main dealership back in the day, would have lost the concession if we had exceeded our mandate and indulged in wild mods. Warranties would have been invalidated and god knows what else. Occasionally we had no choice other than to open up a box and repair it when really it should have gone back to Lotus on warranty. It was the mid 70s, Saudi had doubled the price of oil overnight, everybody was going on strike, 3 day working week, electricity could suddenly go off in the middle of the day and even Bonny and Clyde would not be able to get a warranty replacement 5Speed Box out of Lotus. Even common parts like bearings and baulk rings were sometimes unavailable from Lotus so I had to get them from BL at a third of the price. Very naughty.

The point I'm making here is my experience with the +2 Elans was when they were 3 or 4 years old and the Elite/Esprit/Eclat line was new or a couple of years old or so the work to revitalize the pre-load rubber cone on the gear lever for example was never necessary. Quite a few older Elans would appear in the workshop but usually they were owned by DIY'ers and we would only see them when they had made a major mistake or were unable to finish a job etc.

Back to the archived post.
I think the shift in the video is really tasty looking. The lever seems to be shorter and I don't think the guy shifting through the gears ever engages 5th or Reverse. Is there a reason for this?
My recollection is that the stiff engagement/disengagement of 5 and R was something that would occur irrespective of mileage and we traced around a dozen of these complaints to the Reverse lock-out mech.

If mbell has his box out of the car at the mo. and it is exhibiting 5/R drag, now is the time to put it right.
You will of course need to pull the first motion shaft and pinion, often incorrectly referred to as 4th gear, (4th does not exist in this box, it is just a locked shaft, no increase or reduction of o/p ratio) and the third motion shaft and bearings etc. to get at the lock-out mech. Every time I have done this job I have done it with an empty box, no layshaft or Reverse dog-cog idler. You may be able to leave these in place but I have never tried to do the job that way so I'm not sure. Now that I've thought about it, you will need to remove the layshaft to drop the laygear out of the way to remove the first motion shaft. Easy to forget these things when the box is not in front of me. I am assuming you have a few of the bits and pieces needed to do this.
The ornate but elegant mechanism described in the PDF for locking the box to undo the big nuts and relieve stress on the gears is unnecessary but very pretty. We always just engaged two gears to lock the box which has to be chained to something stable to get the nuts undone.
As a matter of fact, any box that won't take the stress generated by Lotus procedure as opposed to the PDF procedure, will never find it's way into my car. The box should be able to take 3 or maybe 4 times this kind of stress before breaking. If it won't, I don't want it. Its' junk.
One thing you will need is a torque wrench that will apply accurate lb/ft to a reverse thread well past 120lb/ft.
These tools are usually most accurate operating in the middle of their range.

Mbell, you may choose to strip the removed box you have even though it does not exhibit the 5/R stiffness.
I will do my best to find the photos of this mech. and my car etc. and generate a diagram to explain the process of the fault manifesting itself. Simple logic and the availability of time will determine if you want to do the strip or not.

In the post referred to by JonB, I see a pic of a +2 lever next to an S1 Elite. The difference is a surprise to me.
The Ebay Eclat box I rebuilt came with a lever absolutely identical to the +2 lever. Lotus were chopping and changing things a bit at the time. When I had to remove the lever to get an engine out I usually left the rubber bellows on the shaft so never really examined the shaft covered by the boot or bellows on the Elite.
Is the lever in the video a shortened +2 stick or one of those S1 Elite sticks?

I'm not an expert on these forums so I have to ask, is the ''Upload attachment'' button at bottom left of this page for adding a pic?

Regards
Satyr Icon

[Spyder fan]

Good morning Satyr,
I’m following this topic with interest, we need to have a local meetup with a few other owners to swap advice and stories. Your reminiscences of your time as a Lotus franchised dealer would be really interesting.

To add pictures to your posts you are correct that you need to click on the Upload Attachment button at the bottom of the message pane, this will open a dialogue that asks you to select the file from your devices storage folder. Jpg pictures are best, but the file size must be less than 2mb or you will get an error message. I have attached a picture and a screenshot of the dialogue. There is the option to place the pictures inline with your message between paragraphs, it’s a bit fiddly to do this, so most people just upload and then post their message, the system inserts the photos beneath the message.

PS: click on the attachments to enlarge them

[mbell]

Mbell, you may choose to strip the removed box you have even though it does not exhibit the 5/R stiffness.

I swapped the box out as I was get occasional synchro issues on 3rd. So primary reason is to fit set of synchro rings but wanted to see what I could to upgrade the shift (more) and also fit the eclat input shaft/bearing set up while I was there.

This box is probably typical of a lot of 5 speeds it is been a bit troublesome and I had to mess with it a few times. Appears it(well the car) was rebuilt in early 90's and then ended in a barn in the US for 20+ years. On getting it on the road it wouldn't engage 4th but all the other gears worked. Removed it and found missing spacer from nose housing. Had one made for it and that fixed that. Then found 4th synchro was gone, so out again. Now issues with third, that could just be low fluid level from it leaking. But as I've now got spare gearbox in the car figured it was time to spend more time on it.

I've had to make up a few tools to enable me to work on them, but now been in a few of them. I haven't messed with 5/rev mechanism. The original box in my car was very difficult to shift out of 5th, this was more of a locked in 5th than general stiffness. Spacing the dome nut off made a positive improvement as easy "fix". I haven't done that to my spare box but that seems to have more of a general drag on 5/rev than locking in 5th but so far isn't too bad.

From memory I need to strip the box down far enough I'll have access to the 5/rev mech to do 1/2/3 synchro's so will take some time to check it out when I do that.

[Satyr Nouveau]

Hi mbell and all 5 Speed Guys,

Please wait until I get around to posting photos and detailed fix procedure. The locked 5 th etc. are classic symptoms of a problem I've fixed many times. There have been other obscure causes as well but nothing that recurred over and over again like this one. Sorry to keep you hanging on but it will be a lot of typing and messing with photos. The easing the common spring fix provides actually gives the game away. The single small component responsible for this misery is hard to believe.

I will try a bit of experimenting here thanks to the help from Spyder Fan.
No intention of irritating everybody but I found some pics of the roads the 5 box was made for.
When anybody in an Elan with a 4 box sees these kind of roads stretching out for hundreds of miles in front of the nose, their heart probably sinks. A 5 box just eats these roads up.
This will just be an experiment to make sure the pic resolution etc. is OK
For fun, can anybody tell me what is missing from almost every pic?

This is crossing Spain from Burgos to Valladolid I think. Very hot day.

Mbell will see roads like this in the US in states like Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma and the Dakotas etc. if those are the states he has to cross. When he says he needs a 5 box he ain't kidd'n. Mark will have seen something like this in his Elise.

Those mountains are getting closer.

These climbs are fairly steep but are all 5 climbs with the occasional 4 just to keep the revs up. The trick is to keep the revs at 3,500 in 5. Difficult to take the pics with one hand.

Photos don't really show the incline very well. This is the relatively easy stuff. The 2 and 3 gear climbs are too tricky to photo unless one wants to take the 'Express' back down to the valley.

Great fun.

Eventually the place levels out again before the real testing stuff.

Nice roads. Hope I'm not irritating everybody.
I had to take these pics because hardly anybody really believes in roads without potholes and roadworks with no 'works' happening to them.

Apart from potholes and 4th rate repairs, has anyone spotted the 'MISSING' element?

After more of this................

I finally get home and get my boots off so I can do my new wheels. The climbs into Portugal from Spain and the ones in Portugal are too tough to take pics with one hand so I won't bore you all with anymore pics.

This shot is actually from a couple of trips ago when I was working on my new Chrome wheels. I still have the mag wheels that came with the car but the chrome jobs are more handsome by a mile.

By now the 'MISSING' must be really obvious. TRAFFIC!!!!!!
Only about 90% of Spain is like this and 50% of France, Portugal is OK as well but central Portugal where I have a spot, is corrugated with mountains ( my 'crib' is near the top of one of them ) and not all the roads have the extra lane on the up-side for commercial vehicles. That said, Portuguese drivers have patience like you don't find in France or 'Jolly Old'.

One of the reasons for the pics and monologue is, on the ferry to St. Malo were about a dozen vintage WWII military vehicles from UK that met up with a 40 or more strong group from Germany. They were doing some sort of a club run to Gibraltar and back through Spain and France to Calais. The German vehicles looked like they had all been restored to factory spec. A few of them hovered around November Bravo Whiskey but looked at it as if it was a piece of plastic rubbish. A Brit. with a sense of humor asked me if I was with the convoy and said he thought the camouflage was great but the car didn't exist until 30 years later.
Spyder will no doubt get the joke. These were all transport vehicles, munitions trucks, troop carriers, jeeps, lots of staff cars and I saw at least one ambulance, no combat or armor. The Germans looked like they could re-build an engine on the side of the road if somebody got into trouble. Strength in numbers.

Does this forum ever organize something similar?

I think I have the measure of the pics. insertion and text stuff.
My next submission will hopefully be more meaningful.

Satyr Icon

[Satyr Nouveau]

Hi All,

For anybody who ' needs ' to fix the 5/ Rev shift stiffness, the bad news is you will have to get your box looking like the pic below at least if you suspect the following applies. The well meaning suggestions regarding weakening the heavy spring and plunger combination in the bottom of the box can prove fatal to the box, particularly if you are going to use the vehicle a great deal. The easy spring/plunger/washers etc. fix is equivalent to a good friend suggesting you fix your flat tire by drilling another hole in it -- to let more air into it.

You can leave the 'lock plate', lever and shims bolted to the box, remove select. shaft as per manual. I use a 1/4 drive deep reach socket of appropriate dia. to retain the spring and ball in the ''lock''.
The excessive force usually applied to shift 5 or Rev. tends to mangle the lever pivot and it's corresponding drilling in the lock plate. If the retaining circlip is mangled and bent out of shape, chances are the drilling and pivot won't be in great shape either. The ''5 Speed PSD. '' offers a fix for this but I will only address the main issue here.

Once the works are removed, the first thing I do is check is the ball ended sliding lock key that lives in the ''lock'' which is the irregular shaped casting you will have driven the selector shaft out of. This slider (key) looks like a machined shaft with ball bearing at each end. This slider should fall effortlessly from the lock when you invert it or during dismantling process.
If it does not, you have probably not seen it yet because it is seized, partially or completely, inside the lock body. There is only one way out of the lock for this component, unlike the spring loaded ball next to it.
My experience is this sliding shaft can be seized to varying degrees between bad and nightmare.
The latest box I fixed with this fault is one of my own, purchased on Ebay. Two hours of tapping, levering and heating and it was still tight to the last 1/4 inch.
The following pics are two slightly different angles of what you will see when this component is seized.
These two pics were taken after the slider was freed so the left hand ball is as it should be when seated in it's D-dent in the shaft.

A slightly different angle showing the gap that opens up around the ball where it emerges from the lock body.

When the sliding key is seized in the lock, slightly more of the dome is visible than seen in the left hand lock.
Sliding the lock body along the selector shaft should be not quite effortless but easy bearing in mind that the only drag that must be overcome is the pressure of the spring loaded ball, housed in the hump closest to the camera. When slider is seized, pulling the shaft from the lock can be very difficult depending on how bad the seizure is.
The left/H ball position is common to all gears except when 5 is engaged and the ball emerges to lock the selector in that gear and eliminate the possibility of Rev. being engaged. The R/H lock mech. shows the slider at the highest point of travel, when it engaged with the notch in the lock plate control rail and 5th gear is engaged.

The following is a combination photo/drawing with the lock body 'ghosted' to show what is going on at the top of the key shaft and it's bore.

The coloured area indicates the 'moat' that appears when the ball is at it's lowest point. This acts as a collection area of oil and the metal particulate content of same. When 5 is selected and the ball face is forced upward, any particulate which is not small enough to pass down the sides and back into the box, is pressed and compacted into the wall of the bore by the curved face of the dome. This happens to the entire circumference of the bore and as the bore/slider clearance decreases, the smaller particulate also becomes impacted to the bore wall.

At this point those not interested in how and why this insignificant component determines the shift quality of 5/Rev. and do not wish to join the 'Gearbox Academy', get the slider out, clean the bore down with a neatly rolled strip of emery paper ( 180 grit is good )clean it all and nail the thing back together and get back on the road.
For the academics, a photo layout of the actual components should help.

In this photo all components are in their horizontal position at Neutral. The lock key ( shown suspended above the lock ) is actually buried in the lock immediately below it and precisely South of where it appears. The bottom dome of the slider is resting in his D in the shaft ( gravity contact only ). It should also be noted that the spring loaded ball housed in the hump on the r/side of the lock is engaged with his own D in the shaft providing a ''soft lock'' on the selector shaft we are all familiar with.

When engaging 5 from this position, the rod, A - C, is pulled through the lock body by the pivoted lever on the left. The lock itself is prevented from moving with the shaft or rod, by a limiter on the downward facing control track of the lock plate. The slider key is forced out of its' D in the shaft and upward so that the upper ball end locates in the notch which can be seen on the L/side of the lock plate control track.

The above pic has a second selector shaft added at the bottom to show where the D-dents are situated inside the lock body. In 5th, the slider is resting on the high land of the shaft, forcing the slider upward. The D immediately to the right is never visited by the slider, it is exclusively used by the ''soft lock'' spring loaded ball when N and Rev. are selected.

In normal operation, effort at the top of the pivoted lever would have to overcome the resistance offered by the ''soft lock'' ball, negligible friction in the lock and bore of the box casing, the heavy D-dent spring and plunger in the bottom of the box and the engagement of the sychro hub and 5th gear.
If the sliding lock key becomes seized, it takes a position somewhere midway between the upper and lower travel limits. It will not lock properly or release properly. Basically noman's land.
Depending on how solid the seizure is, the slider will be applying considerable 'grip' on the shaft when the shaft should pull through the lock with little effort. This will translate as a noticeable difficulty engaging and disengaging 5th gear.

Refer to pic above.
To disengage 5th and move to N, the green highlighted part of the shaft must be pushed back through the lock body until the 5th gear release D-dent is under the slider and it can disengage its' upper end from the notch in the lock plate control rail by dropping into the D in the shaft. Until this occurs, the lock body will be held in position where you see it in the pic. Once the green highlight section of shaft is pushed through the lock body, the lock body and shaft are free to move to the right of the photo to engage Reverse gear.

The above pic shows R engaged. The lower Shaft has been added to show the extent of travel from N and to assist orientation.
The L/H side of the lock plate control rail is now exposed and the lock notch can just be seen to the L of the lock body.
Unfortunately or fortunately, the clearances of this design are relatively huge and allow the partial jamming of the 5/Rev. mechanism when the slider key seizes. If these components were precision machined and the slider even started to seize, 5 and Rev. would have become immediately unavailable and nobody would have started talking about shimming out the main 5/Reverse positional spring and plunger.
This box needs the tight location it came with. You only need to down shift from 5 a bit too enthusiastically a few too many times and get those ''dog tooth'' Rev. gears kissing each other at 3 or 4,000 rpm to find that out. Get it badly wrong just once and you will wish you had drilled a hole in your flat tire.

For convenience I will repeat an earlier pic from above.

The casement drilling for the 5/R selector shaft is in relatively soft alloy and no hard bearing surfaces. It is designed to sustain light stress location of the shaft A-C. B is not designed to act as a fulcrum, only to guide, lightly support and allow the shaft to access the tailshaft housing where it operates the 5th gear sychro. Since both A and C are both effectively unsupported, B will act as a fulcrum when any up and down or sideways force is applied to A or C. The drilling is only designed for fore and aft movement of the shaft.

When K is seized in the lock body in a position which is neither 'lock' or 'release', the clearances of the mech. allow the lock body to be forced along the lock plate control rail while the sliding key is still only halfway between lock and release condition. This expands the distance between the control rail and the upper surface of the shaft because the ball ends of the slider are both 'riding' the high lands of the components they are in contact with. The lock plate is solidly bolted to the side of the casing and so, the control rail at the bottom of it can be considered immovable. When the expansion occurs, halfway between A and the casing at B, the result is considerable downward pressure on the A end of A - C forcing B to act as a fulcrum, which it was not designed for. Since the lock plate and control rail are immovable the only component with the necessary 'give' in it is the unsupported A end of A - C, the selector shaft.

Adulteration of the main 5/N/R location plunger and spring may give the impression of easing the 5/R shifting but it only really serves to encourage continued use of the car/g-box despite the true malfunction. Any side or down thrust on ( A ) will produce excessive wear and distortion of ( B ) over an unknown mileage or time.
It may be useful to remember that if and or when, the casing at ( B ) gives way, what happens at ( A ) will be inversely expressed at ( C ), which carries the selector fork which needs to be parallel with the sychro hub to make a clean engagement.
If you have a ''trailer queen'' with the 5/R tough shift, I'd just leave it but if serious mileage is on the cards .....

I don't know any easy way of doing the above fix or any 'sure-fire' way of confirming if that one small component is indeed seized, without stripping the box. No intent to depress anybody here just a possible fix and a little warning.
Sixty years ago I had an engineering tutor who got fed up with a string of my easy fix solutions to mechanical problems, he said '' If we're gonna talk about the s--t, we're gonna talk 'bout the s--t the way the s--t REALLY is, anythin' less and we're just sitt'n here gett'n older fer nuth'n.'' Sounded good to me then, still does.

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[mbell]

Hi Satyr,

Sorry for delayed response, I've been away. Now on with try process and understanding this.I think I understand the issue and roughly what is going on but need to get into my box so I can see it for myself to have confidence in understand it fully but that likely a few months away.

Really appreciate the detailed information and photos. You've very likely saved me trashing my box at worse or having to fit/remove the engine/gearbox an extra time at best!

Thanks,

Mark

[Satyr Nouveau]

Hi Mark,
All the text and pics make it look complicated. It only takes five minutes to show the fault with the box in front of us.
Basically what is making the 5/Rev. shift difficult is the selector shaft is not moving through the lock without resistance from the sliding key being seized. The seizure can also make reverse stiff but not always.

I know it is a bitter pill to swallow but I don't any way around it. The idea that a one inch sliding component can make an engine and box removal necessary is hugely irritating. The dismantling of the box is no mean feat either. If you already have a box out, half the job is already done.
One thing worth remembering is not to tap the 3rd motion/output shaft forward at all until the 3rd gear sychro collar has been removed. The manual shows a drawing of this hub being removed at an angle. If the output shaft has been bumped forward 1/2inch the synchro hub can very difficult to get off. There is very little clearance.

In an earlier post you were thinking of having your box machined to accept the later stronger 1st motion shaft bearing fitted. This may not be worthwhile if the car is not going to do 70 or 80,000 miles. My own older type bearing ( thinner Maxi ) OEM version actually lasted for 150,000 before it started to whine a bit. I only decided to rebuild a new box because it started really whistling at 80/90 mph. 50,000 miles later. The real deciding factor will be the availability issue of the bearing. I suspect the original thin one is more or less extinct now.

One test worth doing is with car stationary and the engine off, if reverse is normal selection but 5 tough to get in but easy to get out of, the sychro and baulk ring are more likely to be the cause. If 5 is tough to get in and tough to get out, the selector shaft is the problem. Remember that reverse has no drag from a synchro hub to overcome to engage so if reverse is tough as well the most likely culprit is the nasty little slider key in the lock mechanism.

If you do get round to dismantling the box in a few months time, don't hesitate to make contact here. If your 5/R selector shaft is being impeded by the lock key you may well need a little advice turning the shaft 180degrees to disengage it from the pivoted lever above it.
It will be interesting to see if the selector shaft is indeed 'grabbed' by the key.

Good luck.
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