Excessive side-to-side play in gear lever. 5 speed box

[triumph2.5man]

1.5dci 2003 110k miles. The gears all engage OK but there is at least 1.5" play from side to side with the gear lever in any position. A daughter who does not normally drive the car first noticed it and found it awkward especially when hunting for third. I must have got used to it! Having had my attention drawn to this problem, I could not let it go!
This problem first appeared on this Forum a few years ago starting off as "1.9 dci gearbox problem - viewtopic.php?f=2&t=22407#p124588 then ending up with a Youtube video from MilosB. https://youtu.be/3NSbwc3V7aM. My problem is identical. The original post did not resolve the problem - it sort of fizzled out with no solution!

The problem is in the gear changer unit (where the gear lever is). The gear lever moves two cables, the first via an extension of the lever (this engages the selectors in the box) and the second operates via a bell crank lever via a pin on the side of the lever (which moves the mechanism across the "gate".) This bell crank is black plastic and can be seen clearly in this photo. Where the pin contacts the lever (too high to see), it has worn the plastic away resulting in free play where there should be very little. What to do about it? It cannot be repaired or safely bodged and cannot be accessed in situ. The gear lever housing will need to be removed from the car (lower exhaust pipe, remove heatshield, four nuts and the lever assembly will drop down. Four hidden screws and the top will separate from the bottom. (This is of course, after removal of centre console). Unclip the cables, reattach to replacement assembly and put back together.
I found a good unit from the local scrappy (I seem to spend my whole life there, crawling under Meganes!) at a cost of £20, removal made easy as the centre console and gearbox were missing from the donor car. Plenty on ebay at around £30 up plus postage. Problem solved! On to the next problem....



Mike

[triumph2.5man]

I hope this post will help somebody somewhere sometime.
I changed the gear unit OK, unbolted exhaust from cat, came down a little way, unscrewed the heatshield and was able to bend it down just enough to squeeze the gear linkage unit out, unscrewed the top, swapped the gear cables over. I used the existing cables as those from the donor vehicle had been damaged (removed by prising off instead of squeezing the clips together.) Heat shield easily pushed back into shape. A layer of sealant around the floor hole (to keep them there fooms out!), pushed back up until the clips clicked then bolted in and all back together. The difference was remarkable, Now I know when lever is in neutral instead of guessing.
Now the important bit - the autopsy! Not intended to come apart, I sawed the old unit open and found that the bell crank lever (which converts side to side movement to fore and aft) was not in fact worn as I suspected. The gear lever stud locates on a white plastic or nylon bush with a conical internal face. This had become unlocated and pushed outwards, resulting in the lost movement. In fact I was able to easily remove the bush from the hole.
Don't know how it was retained when made, fixed with adhesive possibly.
The annoying thing is that I could easily have repaired it by drilling into the side of the gear unit (easy) and locating the bush with a self tapper or epoxy adhesive. This would have been a good repair but this is a case of HINDSIGHT being an exact science! Being a tightwad and a cheapskate, I could have saved myself 20 quid and time spent crawling under cars at the scrappy, not to mention the time spent doing the change. Having said that I do like crawling around scrappies and have been doing it 55 years!
Have attached some pics. The last one shows the inside of the gear unit and the white bush can be seen.
Learn from my mistakes maties!

Mike

[Stranger]

Nice one Sir, great write up and I'm sure it'll help someone along the way