406oc.co.uk

So the car currently has no wheels (looks like a spaceship/shuttlecraft), I've loosened the hub nuts, separated the ball joints (without a splitter, thanks guys :-) ) freed the N/S (LHS) driveshaft etc.

But - How do I separate the gear select linkage from the gearbox? Do the "cups" just pop off? do I need to press/depress anything etc?
Any advice is most welcome - thank you
(is this another "Clarkson" moment?)

Use a large flat blade screwdriver or a pry bar under the the linkage ball joint and lever it until it pops off.

jasper5 wrote:Use a large flat blade screwdriver or a pry bar under the the linkage ball joint and lever it until it pops off.

Ok, I'll give that ago after work, I was worried about forcing.
Thank you.

I find putting an 11mm or 12mm spanner under the joint to leaver them off is best.

ally406 wrote:I find putting an 11mm or 12mm spanner under the joint to leaver them off is best.

Yeah, that seemed like a good idea to me too - but neither that or belting a flat screw driver with a hammer seem to be working.
I'm wondering about getting a tube, cutting a slot and making it into a cup and then hammering.
It's really frustrating - my technique must be off.

Bashing with a hammer and screwdriver won't do any good and the spanner idea won't work....not enough leverage.

You need to place your large screwdriver under the linkage near to the ball and lever it off, put something else under it to gain extra leverage if required.

You could always try molegrips on the linkage and twist the ball joint off.

Never had any problems taking linkages off with a spanner They can take a bit of force, unless they're shagged out, in which case they tend to come off all by themselves when you're far away from home.

ally406 wrote:Never had any problems taking linkages off with a spanner They can take a bit of force, unless they're shagged out, in which case they tend to come off all by themselves when you're far away from home.

That sounds familiar,
ihad a 405 that used pop its linkages off and one of them bent,
imust of put it back on 50 times just about got it home,
ihated that car

ally406 wrote:Never had any problems taking linkages off with a spanner They can take a bit of force, unless they're shagged out, in which case they tend to come off all by themselves when you're far away from home.

I meant in this case, clearly the OP is having trouble moving them as they appear to be very tight, only strong leverage will move them in my opinion.

jasper5 wrote:

ally406 wrote:Never had any problems taking linkages off with a spanner They can take a bit of force, unless they're shagged out, in which case they tend to come off all by themselves when you're far away from home.

I meant in this case, clearly the OP is having trouble moving them as they appear to be very tight, only strong leverage will move them in my opinion.

Yup - having lots of trouble. I tried greasing up the ball in the hope that this might make it easier, it's not like it was stiff in terms of rotation of the cup, but I thought that it might help - but to no avail.

My worry is one of damage to the gearbox by applying so much force to the linage cup - and therefore onto the ball and then the gearbox.

I might get my Half-scissor jack and/or ratchett straps out to apply upwards force away from the gearbox and mole grips on the ball-arm to compensate.

Disconnecting the cup-and-ball linkage on the MGF gear box was a lot easier - but I think that this was partly due to accessibility as much as anything else.

It's sunny out there today at least - so I might actually get to drop the gearbox & say hello to the clutch.
It's been heavy rain except for Monday & Thursday - so I must make the most of things!

Ok, so I finally managed to disconnect the gear linkage on Saturday, this is how I did it.

Mark the gear linkage cups with tip-ex or other correction fluid so that you don't get them mixed up; I marked them T, M & B for "top", "middle" & "bottom".


I cut a piece of broomstick to a suitable length to reach between trolley jack and troublesome gear linkage, cutting out a portion of the end of the broomstick to create a "U-shaped" (or from the angle that the photograph was taken, "c-shaped") cup.


I put the u-shaped cup end of the broomstick against the gear linkage that I wished to separate, putting the other end into the cup of my trolley jack and gently applied some force by pumping the trolley, to push the linkage off.


I was careful not too apply too much force that I have might broken something, 1 and a half pumps of the jack was enough to pop the middle cap off.


Once the middle linkage was disconnected, I was able to access the top and bottom linkages with an open-cup spanner


Popping them all off successfully.


Thank you all for your advice and reassurance in doing this trivial thing, I'm just so wary of accidentally breaking things.

Oooh, what a pa-lava I gather the balls are different sizes on the ML5T so impossible to mix up but I don't know about the ML5C (which yours obviously is 'cos it has 3 cables)

I might need to add this to the Knowledge Base, perhaps you were just unlucky or it might be a ML5C thing...

steve_earwig wrote:Oooh, what a pa-lava I gather the balls are different sizes on the ML5T so impossible to mix up but I don't know about the ML5C (which yours obviously is 'cos it has 3 cables)

I might need to add this to the Knowledge Base, perhaps you were just unlucky or it might be a ML5C thing...

Maybe I'm just a bit of a weakling - I haven't looked at the size of the balls to judge whether it's easy to differentiate the relevant cup, but I'm always in the habit of marking things with correction fluid "just in case". Especially when doing things that involve cams/crank/timing or HT leads, distributors etc.

steve_earwig wrote:Oooh, what a pa-lava I gather the balls are different sizes on the ML5T so impossible to mix up but I don't know about the ML5C (which yours obviously is 'cos it has 3 cables)

I might need to add this to the Knowledge Base, perhaps you were just unlucky or it might be a ML5C thing...

Just checked, the top and the bottom balls are the same size as each other, the middle one is larger.

Glad you got there in the end

I've never used anything other than a big screwdriver or pry bar to remove these linkages (I've done this dozens of times in the 41 years I've been a mechanic).

You just find a solid point to lever from and pop off the linkage with a sharp upward movement, 3 seconds usually.

I stand corrected on the use of an open ended spanner, but I've never got to that point.