Back in September, we experienced a problem with the Tiger making the
first-to second shift at an autocross in San Diego. Since the clutch was
only about a year old, and the clutch master and slave cylinders were only
a few months old, and the transmission had been behaving flawlessly, I
<erroneously> presumed myself to be having a shifter/linkage problem.
I asked for help here, and got tons of advice and information. Thank you
all.
While we were in the Bay Area last month Paul Reisentz loaned us a nearly
new Hurst Competion-Plus shifter, less some mounting hardware and the shift
lever itself.
A number of projects kept me from doing anything about this "problem" until
Saturday afternoon. Since we wanted to run the car again on Sunday, I
thought I'd better do SOMETHING about the shift problem.
First thing I did was to get the beast up on jack stands, put it in neutral,
and loosen the attchments of the shift rods to the shifter. Then I
recentered each of the three transmission shift levers on the neutral
position and retightned the attachments to the shifter. The test drive
showed no improvement, so I went ahead and removed the stock/original
shifter, installed the Hurst unit, and fabricated a really outrageous shift
lever using a piece of half-inch pipe, a T-fitting, two nipples and two
plugs.
The next test drive was devastating. Twice before I could get back home, I
got into a situation where I couldn't get the car into ANY gear.
A friend who was visiting from out of town and helping out a bit kept
insisting that it sounded like a clutch problem to him. I kept insisting
that the clutch and the hydraulics were all new. Finally, at about 9:30 in
the evening, with nothing else to check, I crawled under the car and asked
him to step on the clutch pedal while I looked at what was going on.
Picture in your mind the sight of a clutch lever and a slave cylinder
simultaneously traveling an equal distance in opposite directions!
The top bolt that holds the slave cylinder bracket to the bellhousing was
gone! And the bottom bolt was very, very loose!
AAAARRRRRRRAARARAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!
The good news is that the Hurst shifter is absolutely positively "bitchin'"
in every respect. We'll be buying one for the autocrosser for sure, and
maybe one for the street car too.
The moral: Just 'cause a thing was done/brand new yesterday, does not mean
it's ok today!
Ramon
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