Gear selection problems.....linkage disengages

[Cruz]

A friend of mine is having gear selection problems on his 1987 1.9dg panel van.

When selecting first or third the gearshift level disengages from the selector lever and the linkage drops to the floor. It seems the linkage is travelling too far and makes them disengage.

He has already put on a linkage repair kit but cannot fathom why he is getting excess travel and cannot really afford to pay garage costs at the present time

Any ideas?

[Aidan]

set up / length of linkage / damaged cup / damaged ball / wrong cup /wrong rear linkage/ worn bushes / wrong fittings etc....but it's dead simple and pretty obvious stuff really with say the relevant page from the haynes or bentley manual

[Cruz]

Cheers Aidan. Him and a friend have looked at all that and can't fathom it. They need to get it on a ramp and have someone who knows what they are looking for to sort it

[Cruz]

Aidan

Just a thought.

How good of a fit should the gearshift ball be in the selector lever?

Does the selector lever wear also?

[Aidan]

should be a good fit and set it up with the cup pushed up to fully engage with the ball
if ball is damaged and has ridden up it's shaft it might pop out
basically start stripping cleaning and inspecting and repalcing as required starting at the cup and ball, boot is usually split/missing so all sorts of crud gets in the cup where the poly grease goes hard like concrete