.GUIDE : Refurbishing your gear linkage

Just to update on this - once I finally got my car to a state whereby I could move it, I found that first and reverse gear were practically identical. To get first I had to hold the gearstick half way between neutral and where first should be and feather it in - not my idea of practical.

The clearance (step 47) is somewhere between 18mm and 20mm depending what you read but I found that the plastic base of my gearstick wasn't hitting the metal stopper in time which meant the shaft rotated all the way into reverse each time. By reducing this clearance I managed to get a perfect first gear engagment. I didn't measure it but I guess it's aroudn 14mm now - get someone to move the gearstick while you look under the car and it'll be obvious how much you need to move the clearance to engage first properly.

I also found that using the mk2 style rubber o rings on the two link bars I got a more definite feel. The sponge ones don't really do much