(T) Cento gear lever

Have just bought a '96 899 Cento for my daughter. It seems that selecting gears is a bit of a lottery as selection is anything but direct and she is finding that she will select 3rd instead of first and down into second instead of 4th.I understand that operation is by cable.

Is there a spring which is meant to return the lever to neutral? What can be done to define the gear positions better so that it a bit better than a porridge stick.

The Haynes manual is not much help in this.

Hopefully, some of you Cento gurus will have some ideas.

King Jay

They're supposed to spring to the 3rd/4th sort of plane, if the change is a little stiff the cables could be worn or tight.

Thanks Pete.
It certainly doesn't seem to spring across to any extent. I doubt if the cables are too worn as the car has only done 37k.
I assume any adjustment can be made by removing the gear lever cover to expose the cables.
I have removed this before to coat the base of gear lever and its socket with spray grease, but it didn't have much effect.

Hi,
Yeah mine's the same 94 cinq 899cc, have stripped the gear linkage down and the free play seems to be in the gearbox itself, very little play in the cables so I didn't think the cost of changing the was worth it, about £50 each from Fiat and there's two of them, one for forward and back, one for side to side, on the stick, there seems to be more play forward and back as compared to side to side(on my cinq anyway).
The guides for the bottom of the gear lever are available form Fiat at about £1 for the bottom guide and about £2 for the top guide, makes the stick feel better but still have to chase gears.
On my car I think the previous owners hadn't followed the manual adjust of the clutch at service intervals and had therefor strained the gear selector mechanism in the gear box.

Hope you find an easy fix....

Thanks
Paul T

Paul,
Thanks for the very helpful info. I doubt if I would want to spend that amount on cables either. as I cannot believe that there can be much wrong with them at this mileage.
I'll have a good look at all the linkages and see if I can spot anything which would need freeing up or tweeking.
If I am able to improve the gearchange, I'll post the info on here.
John in Oxfordshire