Hi All.

Having great fun returning our 1969 500F back to full 'zero miles' status.

Rebuilt engine. Perfect.
Rebuilt gearbox and all seemed good on the bench.
New gearbox mountings (others were totally gone).
Having trouble selecting all of the gears all of the time when installed into car.

1,2,3 is the current selection and sometimes reverse... We tweak the coupling (that is new), then get reverse and some other gears but never all at the same time..! 4th is still a problem however we tweak things.

Tweaked the adjuster towards the front at base of gear stick, but no joy to get all gears at same time.

Might it be the bush at the base of the gear shift? Do I buy a new gear linkage seeing as though all else is new and 'tight' and the next weakest link is the oldest thing?

Or...do I put another spare gearbox in that I have kicking around in the workshop!

Something else?

Sorry for the questions, but there were three of us on it today (two v knowledgable) for 3 hours and got nowhere so I limped it home with three gears.

Thanks guys!

I assume it is the same gear stick and linkage as before? If so did it select gears ok before. If so it's highly unlikely to be either of them. I bought a new bush for my gear stick with the intention of replacing it but when I had a look the bush it wasn't worn at all and that is on a 1966 car with 78000 odd miles on it. Plus I don't think they are particuarly easy to change.

The recommended way is to select reverse gear and tighten the two bolts at the base of the gear stick to the tunnel whilst it is in reverse. It should then cleanly select all gears. If not then it is possible that the gearbox hasn't been rebuilt correctly, it sounds a bit suspicious that it won't select 4th at all.

Putting the spare gearbox in will prove whether there is any problem with linkage/gearshift as opposed to the rebuilt gearbox.

Tony

Can you get fourth gear with the rubber linkage off and a stout screwdriver or bar through the hole in the selector shaft and turning and pushing in the right direction from known neutral?
That would eliminate assembly problems.
If that is the case then it is most likely the linkage because if it gets too soft there won't be sufficient torsion to turn the selector shaft.

On ramp today rather than grubbing around on the floor so will have a tinker with it after your suggestions.

Thank you all for your help. Will hope to give you a glowing report later as ordered a completely new gear linkage from south of my right hand.

Got there in the end. Was a bit tight on one fork so replaced and all good.

Thank you for the trouble.