Gear lever rubber gaiter

Mike Allen

A2OC Donor
Hello All,

I had a new clutch fitted 2,000 miles ago on my 1.4 petrol and since then the gear change has been notchy and occasionally obstructive. Not going from 2nd to 3rd gear at the first attempt in particular. The garage re-checked the cable tension settings and said they were perfect and it was most likely worn synchro on 3rd gear. Yesterday I lifted the leather gaiter on the gear lever to have a look underneath and the rubber gaiter is floating loose. Should there be plastic buttons to locate the four corner holes in position?

Thanks, Mike
 
yes the rubber gaitor is meant to be held in place with 4 plastic tabs, it is fastened to the top of the foam block from memory
whilst the gaitor is loose it would be worth cleaning any crud out of the white nylon ball and socket as this tends to get bits of the decaying rubber from the loose gaitor and it makes it stiffer than it should be. There is a C shaped metal clip on the top of the white ball, if you remove this then the ball nad houseing can be lifted up and cleaned, then relub with whte grease.
I would say that the cables are NOT correctly adjusted if the gear change was OK before the new clutch was fitted and is now worse. If you follow the Utube video about setting the cables please ignore the advise to pull on the cables to tension them (I did this and the gear change was poor), simply pull and push on the cables and let them settle into thier natural position then release the locks on the cable end. This resulted in a perfect gear change on My A2's

Also worth checking that there is oil in the gearbox, especially if the garage dropped the oil to aid getting the gearbox back into the car. (a Petrol A2 that I recently did up was bought with a broken gearbox, when I dropped the oil there was less than a cupful of oil in the box. when I removed the gearbox there was a nearly new clutch installed (Valeo so I know that it was not original clutch) Now I may be wrong, but I bet the garage dropped out the gearbox oil so they could remove the drive shaft flange to aid getting the box in and out, then forgot to refil the gearbox - the result being a totally knackered gearbox

Fill an level plug is either a 17mm allen key or a large torque with a anti tampet pin in the middle

Cheers,
 
Hi Paul,

The garage changed the gearbox oil when they did the clutch as they had noticed it weeping from the joint face.
They dropped the gearbox out by removing the cross member underneath, apparently it was easier that way.

I can see now that the rubber gaiter should clip down onto the foam block but that is not located at all firmly so it would be difficult to get any pressure to bear on the clips. The foam block is also fractured in front of the central rectangular hole but it is still holding together. Any suggestions?

Thanks, Mike
 
My foam block was in bits and the rubber boot too, I just took both out and be done with them.
I don't know if you need them there but I would like to know!!

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3003 using Tapatalk
 
removing the gaiter is an option, but it is there to isolate noise from entering the cabin
I repaired mine with superglue (thin) and pieces off an old push bike inner tube, a little time consuming, but a good result at the end
It is easier to clip in the gaiter with the centre console removed. if the foam is broken then spray adhesive in the crack should work OK

put lots of talcum powder in the gaiter to keep it in good condition
Cheers,
 
How do you remove the rubber gaiter? Is it just the four clips holding it in place or is it glued as well?
 
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