Thank you John, and thanks again jbk…really grateful for your advice. I think you’re right, I’ll certainly check / replace that tang and either way, the bushes. Thanks for the eBay link too, which I’ll take advantage of.
One last smidgen of information that I could have mentioned is that the gear shift ‘action’ has definitely changed - it hasn’t become sloppy and loose, it’s just become less defined if you can imagine what I mean, kind of harder to move and therefore more difficult to engage gear. I’ve never failed to find a gear though so not as extreme as your case jbk by the sound of it. .
