My replacement (diesel) Multi has a Slightly sticky gear change mechanism.

Gear selection & clutch travel is fine.

What can I clean/lubricate?

For which movements is it 'sticky'?

do you mean it's difficult to get into gear

No.

It's just stiff. Back, forth, sideways...

I'd have a look at the rubber boots on the end of the cables that attach to the gearbox to see if they are still there!
Try a good squirt of release oil.

Cables are attached via a ball joint socket arrangement that should just pop off with a good hard tug!
Otherwise they will after alot of swearing cursing and shredded knuckles

Agree with bms. Sounds like the cables. If the little bellows at the bottom of the two cables split, water can get in and start rusting the inners. The other thing to check is the rubber boot that goes over the lever arms where they go into the gearbox itself. You can see this through the NS wheelarch with the wheel on full lock.

The cables are expensive to buy new ( P/N 55199878 - Shop4Parts gave me a price of £189.15+VAT when I asked last year) and can only be bought as a pair. Probably best bought form a breakers. The little rubber gaiters for them can't be bought separately but I've seen some for an MG ZT or similar that I reckon may do the job. The boot on top of the gearbox is P/N 7553856 and costs about £12 from memory.

Not sure of the mechanism of this gearbox, but a typical fault of the 6-speed JTD box is that the cable twists a shaft going through a drill-out in the aluminium box housing which in turn does the gear changing. Oxidation of the aluminium makes the shaft difficult to turn and gives a sticky feel. Mine was almost seized on the 147, only had 1 to 4, no 5th, 6th or reverse. Taking this apart, cleaning out the crap in the drill-out and replacing the "top-hat" plastic bearings made it a new car. Worth having a look.

Pop the plastic trim off the gear-lever housing, and pull off the gaiter which is attached to it (undo the press-stud).

Look down into the opening and you'll see the top ends of the cables.
Squirt some WD40 onto the ends as you wiggle the lever through it's range on movement fore/aft & left/right, keep at it for a minute or two (wiggling and squirting!) and it should start to free-up.

Lube it afterwards with some light oil (3-in-1 or similar).
If the rubber boots/bellows at the lower end are duff (as WMF and Boilerman mentioned), then you'll need to do it every month or so, more often in wet weather.

BikeDoc said:

Pop the plastic trim off the gear-lever housing, and pull off the gaiter which is attached to it (undo the press-stud).

Look down into the opening and you'll see the top ends of the cables.
Squirt some WD40 onto the ends as you wiggle the lever through it's range on movement fore/aft & left/right, keep at it for a minute or two (wiggling and squirting!) and it should start to free-up.

Lube it afterwards with some light oil (3-in-1 or similar).
If the rubber boots/bellows at the lower end are duff (as WMF and Boilerman mentioned), then you'll need to do it every month or so, more often in wet weather.

Click to expand...

I've got a similar issue with mine, and had a quick look this morning and could only just see the cable ends by shining a torch past the air box. Is there an easier way to get at the boots/bellows, or does the airbox need to come out for access ?

Sticky gear change mechanism...

Removing the left Wheel might help, it's fairly accessible from there as I recall.

Re: Sticky gear change mechanism...

BikeDoc said:

Removing the left Wheel might help, it's fairly accessible from there as I recall.

Click to expand...

Many thanks, I'll give it a go sometime this week.