anyone shortened their gear lever?

[no2lurch]

if so, does it make a big difference? good or bad?

if you have, was it easy to do?

[eoin27]

Yes I did it last week on the coupe! It was difficult to do cos I have the bell housing type cover which has about half an inch of rubber underneath a steel skin and needs to be sawn and completely taken off. Its a terrible job. But if you dont have that and just have a plain narrow metal bar underneath the gear knob then just saw an inch off that. Its is a bit better gearshift and it feels tighter.

***Note. The 406 gear knob can move up the shaft over time from regular use and this makes the gearchange very high and annoying. In this case, ignore what I said above and the gearknob just needs to be pulled off fully and replaced again and sealed with epoxy of glue*** This happened my first 406 and I had the saw out ready to start cutting, when I did manage to get the gearknob off, I realised it was just gradually coming off all along and I just popped it back on!! The only gearknobs which are set high at the factory are on the coupes. The saloon ones are a perfect height I think.

[no2lurch]

i'll be doing it on my estate.

[Welly]

This is funny because every time I jumped into my 406 from driving another car the first thing that stood out was the 'Donkey's wanger' of a gear lever it just seemed unfeasably long but then you just get used to it.

[eoin27]

I think you may have the issue that I had on my first HDi welly.

No2Lurch gear level is the perfect size (just saw the wiki page) but if you really want to take some more off then be careful not to take too much off. Maybe 3/4 inch at a time and make sure the knob is on fully again

[Welly]

Just don't go around exclaiming that you've 'shortened your knob' and how it's much better......

[eoin27]

I wondered how long it would take for wellys smutty comment. For shame welly. For shame.

[highlander]

Shortened gear sticks? Next we'll all be wanting flappy-paddle gear boxes.

I like the gear shift on my car - it doesn't have to be moved excessively, and the stick moves around smoothly.