Rear gearlinkage kit

[gb_brown]

Hi All,

Going to start sorting out the gear change this weekend (on my 90 SE), by servicing the rear gear translator. Which one of the 3 kits; PNM, LotusBits or Lotus do people recommend?

Cheers

Gareth

[SteveSmith]

I've just fitted the PNM kit and it went together very easily. To be honest I think they're all much the same. You don't get any more bits in the newly released Lotus kit so I don't see any reason to pay twice the price for it !!

The new Lotus gearlever master unit overhaul kit.... now thats a different matter. I'm about to place my order for that

[RichardN]

I have just fitted the Lotusbits one and am very pleased with it. The quality of the rod ends is excellent. Far better than the original Lotus ones. It doesn't come with rubber boots for the rod ends although since the originals didn't have them either and they lasted 18 years, I am not too worried about that!

The service was good too. I managed to overtighten the nut on one of the rod ends and stripped the threads (in the nut). While getting it off I damaged the rod end too but I was sent a replacement by return of post even though it was my fault.

The difference is incredible. I can now change gear using just two fingers on the gear lever and the changes are much smoother.

One thing I would advise is to take a look at the gear lever end as well. After fitting the kit I had problems getting into first gear. It turned out that the reverse gear location parts at the lever end had worn so badly that the lever could go over too far and I was hitting the point between gears. The nylon peg that stops you selecting reverse by mistake had almost completly gone and the block it hits against was badly worn. I removed the block and filed the face flat again then I bought a new nylon peg from SJ Sportscars. A few minutes adjusting the position of everything has really has tranformed the gear change.

Whichever kit you get it should make a big difference.

Richard

Edited June 27, 2006 by RichardN

[Jonathan]

Not sure why the Lotus kit is so expensive.

I bought all the genuine lotus parts individually from SJ and made my own kit before these were available and it came to WAY less including som extra gaiters for the cables.

Tips:

BOIL the rubber boots before trying to slide the rod ends on - makes it so much easier (be caeful not to split them, although they cost pence to replace)

See if you can get a syringe and use it to suck up some grease (I used general purpose Moly grease), stick the nozzle into the boot and squirt it in to pack the boot out.

Finally try and get a big stainless washer on the end of the translator piece, this stops much and bullets coming up from the road and getting onto the bearing. If you do this though be careful to space it slightly off the bearing or you'll cause the outer race to foul on the washer.....just acts as a good spash guard.

Instalation photos can be found here

[Jonathan]

When you're done with yours steve I'd like to take a look to compare.

My gear change is good but no where near other cars I reguarly drive or the Elise, everyone keeps going on about how good the rear was but I found no difference at all apart from the fact the stick centred after I done it (as it was seized left to right) which was soley down the bearings and the rust.

[Paul93Lotus]

I've just fitted the PNM kit and it went together very easily. To be honest I think they're all much the same. You don't get any more bits in the newly released Lotus kit so I don't see any reason to pay twice the price for it !!

The new Lotus gearlever master unit overhaul kit.... now thats a different matter. I'm about to place my order for that 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

So is the gearlever master unit overhaul kit now available? How much is it?

[pitstoppete]

prices on the www site

[karmavore]

prices on the www site

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Where, exactly?

[karmavore]

Not sure why the Lotus kit is so expensive.

I bought all the genuine lotus parts individually from SJ and made my own kit before these were available and it came to WAY less including som extra gaiters for the cables.

Perhaps the distinction you make between your results and others is an indication that what you put together and what Lotus did are not the same? Just asking.

Lucas.

[Malc Holmes]

I'm glad to hear the gearshift improvement kits are being discussed more often recently. Like all people who have made the improvement, my car has been transformed.

The Lotusbits kit will shortly be available to Club LEW members at a small discount, which I hope will help give it a bit more of an edge on the other kits. I don't want to distract from the function of the other kits at all (they all do much the same job, and having bought and tried a few, I can't complain about there function), but like with any improvment you can make on the Esprit, if it isn't going to break the bank, you might as well fit the best parts you can get.

The lotusbits kit uses rod ends with the body and the bearing surface made of stainless (the stud remains chromate treated mild steel). This gives the advantage that the bearing surface will not corrode, which I think is unique amoungst the kits. This reduces the need for a boot to go over the rod end (which is both suprisingly expensive and difficult to fit). The bearing size in the rod end is also larger than that of the other aftermarket kits which means lower load per square mm and hence should also contribute to increased long term durability.

Lotusbits hope to eventually offer a kit for the gearshift end, but we need to get a used gearshift assy to experiment with. Does anyone have a spare they can sell us (will swap for one of our kits!)? We are also on the look out for an early SE cross shaft extension rod so we can look into making upgraded ones so that the support bearing can be deleted (reducing drag). Let me know if you can help.

Cheers

Malc

[karmavore]

Could someone (vendors included) please enumerate:

1) The various types of kits (F, R, etc..)

2) What each do

3) What symptoms/problems they solve

3) Who sells what

4) How much they cost

5) How many hours they should take to install

Thanks!!

[gb_brown]

Thanks for all the replies, always good to get some feedback. I'd assumed all the kits would be similar, but have decided to go for the LotusBits one. I'll post back once I have done it, to add my feedback to how much/if any difference it makes. I have a feeling, doing the gearlever master unit will make a bigger improvement, but after speaking to Pete this does not sound like an easy job!

Karmavore, there is alot of imformation, as always on Lotus Esprit World have a look at the following pages Gearshift Improvement Kit and Refurbing Translator

Jonathan, really like your site.

SteveSmith, excellent choice of model and colour

[th4neuk]

Hi there,

I've got the PNM one on mine and we filmed the fitting so there is a dvd of the process as far as I know which might be supplied with the kit.

Cheers

Edited June 27, 2006 by th4neuk

[Jonathan]

From looking at the sites the Lotusbits rod ends look a bit more convential / sturdy over time if you ask me.

Being stainless I'd probably go for that, there's really no reason not to do the vast majority of the car in stainless fasteners, they're so reasonable for the huge amount of hassle they eliminate.

I'd buy the front unit but as I say I need to know how shagged mine is before bombing out

[karmavore]

Karmavore, there is alot of imformation, as always  on Lotus Esprit World have a look at the

Yes, but not this time.

LEW only contains Lotus Bits advertising (funny how we blur advertising and journalism these days) and a brief blur on the PNM kit. The page regarding the two new Lotus kits is only a service bulletin.

Anyway, I've complied the following. Could someone fill in the blanks?

1) The various types of kits (F, R, etc..)

Two different kits exist. One addresses gear shift actuation from the gear stick end, the other from the gearbox end

2) What each do

??

3) What symptoms/problems they solve

Specifically I

[Kato]

You find all three kits advertised on LEW's E-shop. LotusBits were kind enough to supply the info found on the page mentioned. We added the details from PNM to that page when they were supplied.

We've supplied all the information supplied by Lotus, which is all the dealers get.

There is no blur between advertising and journalism. Both LotusBits & PNM are advertisers on LEW and have paid a small fee for the year. Neither have paid for this information to be advertised and neither have offered LEW free kits to test.

Our Esprit has both the front and rear kits fitted by Lotus at the factory. We recommend having both ends done if your gearchange isn't satisfactory. If you car is high-mileage for a pre 93 Esprit, we'd also advised the fitting of both kits if you can afford it.

2) The kits are there to replace worn or damaged parts, which will return your gearshift to factory spec and as good as it was when it left the factory in theory.

3) The solve a poor gearchange. All the information is supplied on LEW.

http://www.lotusespritworld.com/EGuides/ET.../Gearshift.html

Lotus sell front and rear kits. Lotusbits and PNM sell just the rears at present.

4) for prices see the shop!

5) Depends on who's doing them and what condition your car is in. These sort of jobs are easy on paper, but with setting up and getting the old stuff off and out, it can take a lot longer. I would expect about half a day to do both depending on your ability.

[RichardN]

I think the front kit is rather expensive because they have included the reverse gear block which is about

Edited June 28, 2006 by RichardN

[SteveSmith]

I agree with Richard - the front kit doesn't need to include the reverse inhibitor block. On my 72k mile car the block is completely undamaged so I don't need it.

If Lotus decide not to offer the kit without the block then I'll be looking into buying the rest of the items in the kit individually to get the cost down.

Fitting the rear translator kit isn't a difficult job. Removing the boot floor is a must and then you have direct access from the top to all the bits you need to swap out. On my car, the bit that took the most time was cleaning all the crap and grease off the surrounding area and retained parts. All in all probably took me a couple of hours including stopping occasionally for coffee !!

Just doing the rear kit didn't make any real noticeable difference to the gearchange so I took the tunnel trim off and had a look at the gearlever end. You can see clear movement where the various bushes and things are so the 'stirring custard' effect I experience can solely be attributed to this hence my desire to buy the kit to fix this.

Getting the whole gearlever mechanism out of the tunnel looks quite fiddly so I imagine it will take at least half a day to get this job done.

[RichardN]

Actually, reading those Service notes about the repair kit again I see that they give part numbers for each of the bits you need so I suspect that you can just order the bits you need i.e. without the alloy block.

I assume that the price of

[Jonathan]

Thats good news.

For

[Kato]

For ClubLEW Members, we've just added the Lotusbits Gearshift Improvement Kit to the discount page! So you can save a few quid on that kit!

ClubLEW

[gb_brown]

Finally had the time to fit the kit, well start doing it anyway. I found a load of other stuff to do on the car at the same time

I've got the rear gear link translator body off the car and want to take it apart to clean it properly and fit the new bearings. Though I cannot work out how to remove the old bearings, am I missing something obvious here?

Cheers

Gareth

[Jonathan]

The bearings come out top and bottom - I done mine my shaking the body until that ali insert which sits inbetween the 2 bearings came across the hole down the middle and used the translator shaft to knock that against one of the bearings.

The bearing should come out with minimal force, once one is out the other is easy.

[gb_brown]

Cheers Jon I thought it couldn't be difficult, will give that a go tomrrow.

[fjmuurling]

Recently I bought the Lotus translator overhaul kit. It looks very good, I still have to put it in the car but i'm waiting for a new exhaust sytem and will do it all in one go, I will let you know the results after fitting the kit.

Freek