Play in gear lever

All the gears are fairly positive in my TD5 Defender, that is, there's no play in the lever once in gear.

Except for fifth gear, and while it selects okay there's about two inches of side to side play on the lever when it's in fifth.

What's worn and is it something that can be fixed without taking the gearbox apart?

l've got a Slickshift kit on the way, will that make any difference?

lightning said:

l've got a Slickshift kit

Click to expand...

fitted one a few months ago ('86 Ninety with LT77 box) and the full kit comes with a new lower linkage bush - guess this makes a big difference over a worn bushing?

Rich.

Hopefully it will.

The spring at the bottom of the gear stick may have broke/moved out of place. May well be a new one in kit.

Well, the Slick Shift seems to get good reviews generally so let's see what it's like when it's fitted.

When you fit the new slickshift you will be able to lose all the slack by tightening down the bolts that the large turret spring sit on. If you screw in the two bolts it allows the spring to take up more play on the ball on the gearstick. You will also be able to renew the base nylon cup which will remove slack and with added grease make the gears easy to locate. Make sure when you pull out the gearstick from its seat that you do not allow a small spring and bush to fly out and get lost. It sits in the ball of the gearstick so be careful. Ensure you add loads of grease and some boltlock stuff to the grub screw in the shaft below the gearstick. You have to remove the grubscrew to change the base nylon cup. Adding threadlock is recommended as this grubscrew can come undone and you then have no gear change at all..

Thank you for the advice, l will get the job done as soon as l get time.

You can find excellent explanation videos on Youtube for fitting the Slickshift gear upgrade. It will help you understand all the bumf in my comment before.
All i can say is its an excellent upgrade and it removes all the sloppyness and the huge amount of travel between gears. It makes a defender like a 'normal' car gearchange. Well worth doing and money it costs.
Remember those bolts remove sloppyness but dont over tighten as you might then find its hard to select gears. Do a bit at a time and test it and dont try it in one go.
If you cant get the grub screw out with your allen key to change the bottom nylon cup you can do a short cut and leave the old bush in place. Try it and see if you can remove the sloppy gearstick with the two spring bolts screwed in a bit to increase pressure on the ball of the gear stick. With lots of grease of course everywhere or it will wear more and quickly too.