MR2 Owners Club

Hi guys

My '98 N/A has a growing niggle I could do with sorting. It's sometimes quite difficult to change gear, with the gearshift feeling loose and the gear not engaging - almost as if the stick would move another couple of cm, the gear would engage. Most of the time it's livable with, but I did a trackday last night and it's definitely a little worse getting into 5th (odd when I never used 5th on track).

I'm reasonably mechanically competent - I've done cambelt / bushes / brakes etc, but I've never done anything with the box so have no idea where to start. The car has done 181k miles, so I guess something could do with a looksee as the gearshift has always felt loose with very little definition to the H pattern. I did replace the 'box oil with redline about 18 months ago and fitted a heavier shifter knob from mr2 heaven - that helped.

TIA,

Joe

Seen this thread ? https://www.mr2oc.co.uk/forum/198/162992.html

jimi wrote: ↑02/08/22 21:39 Seen this thread ? https://www.mr2oc.co.uk/forum/198/162992.html

this is spot on but additionally :-
If the front a rear engine mounts are worn it can lead to the engine rocking more than when the engine mounts are new or in in good condition. This causes issues with gear changes especially at high revs.
Most notably on track days.
had this on my old V6, changed to poly mount insets and gear change issues when away.
I then followed up with replacing the "Square" mentioned in the thread Jimi posted. like new after

Thanks both - the engine mounts were poly'd by a previous owner - I had to temporarily remove the rear mount to get the engine drop enough to access the bottom pully nut when doing the cambelt, so I think they are okay.

I've never heard of / seen this brass fitting from the link you provided jimi - thanks. All my work is usually on the other side of the engine bay! My car has a K&N, so should be quick to go exploring with no airbox to remove. The link didn't have any working images for me, but doesn't sound too hard to find.

Unfortunately the images on that thread were hosted externally (from the club) and they are longer available. I think there's another thread with pictures of it, just haven't found it yet !

No worries - I'll take some pics when I have a go over the weekend.

This is the thread https://www.mr2oc.co.uk/forum/171/166234.html

Square bush is C in this diagram

Wow, that made a difference!
Took about an hour and a half first time, but with a K&N so no airbox to remove it's a 10 minute job.

Undid the two 14mm bolts marked green.

It took me forever to find the square and where it went - turned out it had fallen on the ground. The arm has three fixing points - the two bolts which are very close to the starter motor, the end of the shifter cable and a small 4-6mm pin that goes into the square fitting. The fitting itself sits in a groove on top of the 'box (red arrow) - there's no seat for it as such, it can move a few mm along it's housing. Once I understoood that, it was a matter of swapping it through 90 degrees, greasing everything up and putting it back together.

Difference is night and day, Gearbox feels 150,000 miles newer - such a surprisingly great fix. Wish I'd done that a long time ago!

Thanks so much for your help and taking the time to find a diagram.

no problem, glad I was able to find the relevent info. That's a great result, hopefully some one will find this thread useful in the future.

I wouldn't think the bolts are 14mm, would be a bit big for that bracket (but I could well be wrong ) if it was a 14mm spanner/socket you used then they will be 10mm, Mr T normally uses JIS sizes.

My bad wording, I was trying to be helpful on spanner sizes!

I wondered, just that I'm used to working with bolt sizes