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Making a Quickshift
Fed up with bashing your knuckles on the
dashboard of your kit car, or with knocking your elbow on the
handbrake? Do you render your passenger unconscious every time
you select reverse - you need a quickshift! . But hold on, are
you not keen to pay 25-70 pounds for a quickshift? Why not make
your own.
Materials required
3 M10 nuts (not nylocks) as
spacers (7mm thick)
3 M8 x 25mm bolts
Use of a vice, or two blocks of wood/bricks
A small amount of araldite or car body filler
A quickshift for the
Ford 4 and 5 speed boxes works by moving the fulcrum point of
the gear lever upwards, thereby decreasing the lever advantage
of the lever and therefore shortening its throw. Inevitably this
means that the lever action will be heavier than standard, so be
prepared to accept this. The quickshift kits that you can buy
for 25-30 pounds simply adapt the standard lever, but in my
opinion, they move the fulcrum too high and ruin the quality of
the change, which with Ford gearboxes is usually very good.
First off there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the standard
gear lever unless the rubber mount is knackered. If it is, throw
it away and get another lever from a scrapyard (mine cost £2).
To convert the standard gear lever you must
first remove it and clean it with a degreaser such as Jizer, so
that all the working surfaces are clean, any build up of grease,
or other shite must be removed. Test the motion of the gearlever
when removed and cleaned through every plane to ensure that it
is smooth and easy. If it is not then investigate why, it may be
that the ball joint is pitted, scratched or damaged, if it is
then obtain an undamaged one from a scrapyard. The way the lever
is converted is to move the plastic sphere which acts as a ball
joint 7mm or so further up the lever, and to space the lever
attachment flange by the same amount. This should shorten the
throw of the lever by about 25 percent.
To modify the lever, place the lever with the
linkage downwards on the top of a vice with the linkage between
the jaws and with the bottom of the plastic sphere resting on
the jaws of the vice either side. The jaws of the vice need to
be 20-25mm apart. Ensure that the sphere is level on the jaws (the
lever will be angled as it is when the lever is in neutral). Tap
down on the top of the lever smartly. This should drive the
lever down through the ball joint; keep tapping until the sphere
has moved by about 7mm. If you go too far, turn the lever upside
down, open the jaws of the vice and place the mount flange on
the jaws with the lever down between them, tap gently until the
position is restored.
When this is done, using the 3 M10 nuts as
spacers (and longer m8 bolts!) re-attach the lever to the
gearbox mounting and try the gearchange. It may be stiff into
the reverse gate or across the normal gate; this is because
moving the fulcrum has also put increased tension on the rubber
spring. To release this tension, simply trim about 5mm from the
top of the rubber spring where it meets the retaining collar at
the top of the lever ball joint.
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