Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Type 9 Quickshift upgrade

My car took another step today towards full 'Trigger's Broom' status. This time it was the gear lever's turn to be replaced.

1980s era 4/4s had the Ford Type 9 gearbox. Not a bad unit, but let down by a very rubbery gearchange, mainly due to the relatively long throw and the inclusion of a rubber anti-vibration section halfway up the gearbox shaft.

Having briefly tried the gearshift a friend's 4/4 in France this weekend, I decided Enough Was Enough, and when I got back I ordered a quickshift kit from Rally Design. It arrived the following day, and today I decided to have a preliminary run at seeing what would be involved fitting the thing.

As it turned out, it was an utter doddle, so much so that I didn't even take any photographs.

Whip out the old lever as a reference to know how much to bend the new shaft, disassemble the new shaft (2 circlips), put the shaft in the vice, play a gas torch onto the bend point for a couple of minutes to persuade it to bend, a length of pipe to provide a bit more leverage, bend it, dunk it in some water to cool it off, reassemble and fit to the car.

The whole process didn't take half an hour, and I now have a nice snickety-snick gearchange action. Can't wait to try it out on some nice empty twisty B roads.

Highly recommended and at only 38 quid, a real bargain.

Always fancied one of those. I do like my MT75 box but my only slight niggle is that the stick is a bit long. Always prodding the passenger with my elbow. Often pondered shortening it. Is it just a reduced length stick?

Actually the stick is the same length as the old one, the clever bit is that the pivot point is moved further up the shaft away from the forked bit that works the selector.

The result is that you need to move the knob a much shorter distance in order to select the next gear. The downside is that the effort required is greater, so it can be a bit baulky if you don't match revs correctly.

If you wanted to shorten the lever as well, it shouldn't be a problem, the shaft isn't stainless steel so it should be pretty straightforward to run a die a bit further down and cut the top bit off.

Ah I see thank you.  Suspected that it might not be just a reduced length. Defently on my to do list.

Tim,
Is this the same as CBK's article in this months miscellany?
Nice job.

You must be the only one that does Rog!

I know of at least one CVH engined car where the rubber anti-vibration section has been welded up solid making the gear change feel a lot better.

I must of had the one good one then. Or perhaps it's because I spent 20 years of my life with an R380

Yes Rob - although I haven't received Miscellany yet, so I've not seen the article. It was Christopher's experience that spurred me on to do the same.