I've seen some bodges in my time but this one...
Posted: 25 Oct 2010, 14:04
I went to recondition my very floppy gearchange the other day, armed with a couple of boxes of bits from the ususal Holmfirth vendors of good bits.
Having disconected & dropped the gearchange rod off the bits under the van I realised why I couldnt quite sort out the gearchange....
As you can just about see someone had decided to tighten up the gearchange by firmly anchoring the lever to the arm. Unfortunately they had done this by cutting a slot in the end of the steel rod and the aluminium lever, put a wedge into the slot and then (tried) to weld the lot togetherwith obvious results.....
Guess what, it didn't work - lots of melted aluminium and blobs of steel that just about stopped the shaft coming off the rod but left it free to wobble.
Lots of grinding & filing later I managed to free the selector arm from shaft and cleaned it all up.
I replaced the worn out roll pin with a bolt, then another bolt vertically through the inside of the cup, drill through the shaft and and out to the base of the shaft.
Not perfect, new bits on order...
Having disconected & dropped the gearchange rod off the bits under the van I realised why I couldnt quite sort out the gearchange....
As you can just about see someone had decided to tighten up the gearchange by firmly anchoring the lever to the arm. Unfortunately they had done this by cutting a slot in the end of the steel rod and the aluminium lever, put a wedge into the slot and then (tried) to weld the lot togetherwith obvious results.....
Guess what, it didn't work - lots of melted aluminium and blobs of steel that just about stopped the shaft coming off the rod but left it free to wobble.
Lots of grinding & filing later I managed to free the selector arm from shaft and cleaned it all up.
I replaced the worn out roll pin with a bolt, then another bolt vertically through the inside of the cup, drill through the shaft and and out to the base of the shaft.
Not perfect, new bits on order...