Hitchcocks Forum

Having fitted a 5 speed box to my old 612 that started life as a Watsonian Clubmans GT I found that the slop in the gear lever pivot was just too much, I tried various fixes in the past, but basically the bore of the pivot to which the gear lever is attached is not very round so making up a bronze bush improved things but did not eliminate the play / slop. I got hold of a couple of 19mm O/D X 10MM bore plain sealed ball bearings, and with a bit of careful thought, the use of some shim material, a lathe and some careful machining I now have a gear lever with no play at all. Should improve the gear changes.

Sounds like a good fix. It`s good to hear of a successful result.

Any chance of some pictures please, Andy?



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Andy, yes, pictures please, l'm working on just this conversion. Sealed bearings? And through inner and outer case l guess? Ta, REgards,Mark

Basically you fit the sealed bearings into the lever housing with a spacer in between, the 19mm bearings need shimming to hold them in the housing which is around 19.3mm I/D. Having done that you then make a couple of threaded spacers each with a boss in it that locates into the inner race of the bearings and tighten those up onto the bearings. You then re fit that as an assembly to the footrest mount. I'll try take some pics and or make a sketch, but if you have a lathe it is fairly easy to do.

OK trying to upload a couple of pictures & a sketch. What they are intended to show (subject to the links working) are the completed assembly fitted and removed from the bike and a sketch sjowing generally how it is made. Note that my spacers either side of the gear lever are differing thicknesses to line up the gear linkage.

Thanks Andy, I see it is the rear-sets you are working on. I thought you might be talking about the left to right side gearchange conversion which is what I'm working on! Thanks for the explanation, very neat, I'm sure it will be useful to someone. As the weather is improving you'll soon get back out on the road!

REgards, Mark

An interesting alternative to rose joints!



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Sorry, ignore my last - wrong again! A.