Technical Sticky gear lever/what grease

[Ralf S.]

Does anyone knoe what kind of grease Fiat recommends for lubricating the gear change cables?

My old beast has been largely unused the last 12 months and consequently the gear lever has seized up a bit. In cold weather especially, it becomes heavy to operate and doesn't centre itself. I managed to persuade next door's 8 year old lad in there to lubricate the cables as much as possible, but without taking the air intake pipes off, or jacking the car up to do it from below, it's a bit tricky to lube up the cables properly.

Usually a bit of grease does the job for a while, so I'm fairly sure it's just a cable greasing issue.. but it seems like the grease must be drying up or not getting into quite the right places to make a permanent difference.

I've currently got the gearbox out, so I have a good chance to sort them out properly.. but is there a special/different type of grease recommended? I'm using just regular brown lithium (?) grease, on the basis that any grease is better than nothing, and I have some... but if there's something better, now is the time to deploy it.


Ralf S.

 

[Davren]

I think the inner part of the gear change cables are nylon covered, so shouldn't have any grease on them. Grease makes nylon swell.
.

 

[Ralf S.]

Hmm...

The cables moves freely when they're not attached to anything.. but there may be something in that.

The end sockets/caps might have nylon inserts, like the wiper arms... (I won't know till I clean them out). If so I can try them on the gear change lever ball "dry".

Usually, stuffing grease into the ball/socket makes the gearchange nicer.. and when it's dried out the gearchange gets sticky, so it could be the nylon in the socket is swollen up already so now needs lubrication, whereas they might not have, once.

I'll poke aboot and see what I think..

Ralf S.

 

[chris3234]

Silicon spray would probably work if you can get to the end of the cable I used some on the cables of a family members van

 

[g8rpi]

The cables should not be greased. One treatment that can help is a dry PTFE spray lubricant. This uses a volatile carrier to take the PTFE particles into the required places. I used this on my Croma's cables, which were a bit tight, and it worked fine and was still working 4 years later when I sold it.

I used RS components dry PTFE spray 137-2034 because I had it to hand. There are plenty of other makes, Rocol, Ambersil even WD40 make a dry PTFE spray (Don't use the standard WD40)

Robert G8RPI.

 

[Ralf S.]

Luckily? the cables are off and the gearbox is out, so I've got very good access to the ends. I'm sure (possibly) that there's some PTFE in the garage somewhere.. otherwise I can have a look for the 137-2034.


Ralf S.

 

[Ralf S.]

I hacked the old rubber bellows off the cable ends, since they were all perished anyway... so I was able to have a good look.

The gear cables have a separate ball joint cup piece on the end... It screws onto a thread on the end of the cable and is held at the correct distance by a nut, rather like a steering track rod end.. so theoretically the "cup" part could be replaced on its own.

I cleaned mine out and they look okay. I won't try to find suitable replacements this time.. but similar things exist, anyway.

The cable is a Bowden cable.. and has a metal sheath on it (at least the end part) where it slides inside another metal sheath on the end of the cable. I think its job is to protect the cable where it moves in and out of the outer sheath.. and it's here where it feels a bit sticky.

I've worked some Lithium grease into the cable to loosen it up a bit. It's gagging for some WD40 really.. but so far I've resisted the temptation. I've left the cables pointing upwards and it's getting better the longer the grease has to work it's way down.

For the ends, I found some new rubber bellows for an MG TF which are annoyingly 2-3cm too short to cover all the moving parts. I can't find longer ones anywhere, so I might have to just cover the exposed bit with some heat shrink .. The bellows are tight enough to hold it at one end, the other end will have to be not completely shrunk, otherwise it'll fold up when the cable moves.. but I'm sure I can make a sort of loose fit that covers the join where the inner sheath goes into the outer one.

The good thing is that if I ever find longer bellows, I'll just have to disconnect the ball joint piece to slide them on.. so it's not too bad a job (once you have got your hands on the cable end itself .. might be easier from below, once the battery/gearbox and inlet pipes are all re-fitted.


Ralf S.

 

[Maxcaddy]

When I had my 1.8, the gearchange got so that it would hardly change gear, so I bought a complete arm arrangement i.e. the bit that sat on top of the gearbox, as the cables were actually OK.

About 5 years later it started stiffening up again . As I had thrown the original assembly away I bought yet another one which actually (from memory) wasn't too expensive. However this time I took the old one apart drilled grease nipples into both pivoting arms, and put it aside ready for when it went again. Unfortunately I then sold the car . Although not before buying new headlights for it as I was going to export it to France.

Two years ago I bought my Abarth as A, it had a leather interior, B, it was quite nifty, C, because I had some spare headlights for it, and D, I had a spare gear cable/linkage part ready for when it seized up .

However the cable linkage thingy on my 2004 Abarth is different to that off my 2003 1.8, so that didn't work out . The car is now in France and over the next few weeks I'll see if the LH dip headlights fit, and make any difference .

So the point of the story is that depending on what gearbox fitting you have will make a difference to whether its the cables or the fitting that is seizing up