Shift spring repair

[waspp]

After 20000 miles my shift spring finally gave up the ghost and I enjoyed that slow ride home to the garage. I had another spring from Cannon Racecrafters and got right to the problem at hand. Everything appeared to be straight forward until I dry fitted the cover and found the shifter would not return when shifting to the higher gears. It downshifts fine but when going to third and above the lever stays up after engaging the next gear. You can push it down lightly and then shift up again to the next gear but the spring tension doesn't seem to be enough to return the lever. I have tried the various adjustments on the cover but still the same problem. Has anyone experienced this before or are their any ideas out there I could try.

 

Hal

[belfastguzzi]

After 20000 miles my shift spring finally gave up the ghost and I enjoyed that slow ride home to the garage. I had another spring from Cannon Racecrafters and got right to the problem at hand. Everything appeared to be straight forward until I dry fitted the cover and found the shifter would not return when shifting to the higher gears. It downshifts fine but when going to third and above the lever stays up after engaging the next gear. You can push it down lightly and then shift up again to the next gear but the spring tension doesn't seem to be enough to return the lever. I have tried the various adjustments on the cover but still the same problem. Has anyone experienced this before or are their any ideas out there I could try.

 

Hal

Before putting the cover back on, did you set the gear box internals to neutral?

[waspp]

Yes. You can shift through all gears but when shifting into 3rd and above the shift lever fails to return by itself. I think it has something too do with the racecrafter shift spring putting to much drag on the shift arm.

[docc]

ANd the shift lever and all its mechanism (external) is all cleaned, lubricated and adjusted?

[waspp]

ANd the shift lever and all its mechanism (external) is all cleaned, lubricated and adjusted?

 

Yes.

After stepping away from it and thinking about it the only difference was the new spring, so last night I removed the new spring and compared it to the old one and found the profile to be different. The coils were not aligned with each other and it caused much more tension on the selector arm. I put the new spring in the vise and reshaped it to match the profile of the old one and when reinstalled it worked fine! The spring was not bent correctly which put to much tension on the selector arm creating to much drag on the mechanism. I didn't really like the idea of reshaping the spring but we shall see how that will affect its life span!

[docc]

Ah! Now, reshaping springs in a vice might just get you a bodge point! But only if it works . . .