Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2003 15:35:49 -0400
From: "Bill Sinclair" <bills@domain.elided>
Subject: gear shift rattle
The reverse lockout rod inside my gearshift lever on my 1600 transmission
makes a pretty annoying rattle above 3500 RPM. Looking at the parts manual,
it should have two rubber sleeves at either end of the rod which disintegrated
long ago. I tried to shove some surgical tubing (1/4" I.D. & 3/8"O.D.) down
inside but it was too tight and made the gearshift too hard to shove down for
reverse. My next thought is to drill and turn a piece of nylon to make a
sleeve that would slide into the tube a little more freely. This would be a
bit of a hassle (getting the material, borrowing a lathe) but seems like it
would work. Another option might be finding some plastic tubing of the same
dimensions as the surgical tubing and sand down the O.D. to fit inside the
shift tube. Whatever rattle there was would be considerably more muted than
the metal-on-metal rattle that I'm currently getting. Anybody been here, done
this?
By the way, I'm aware that excess gearshift rattle can be caused by driveline
imbalance problems but I don't think that is the case here. Thanks for any
suggestions.
Bill Sinclair
67 Duetto
73 Berlina
Hampton, VA