Rover 200 & 400 Owners Club

This is actually a PG2 on my 827 but the selector mechanism is the same as a PG1. There will be detail differences on the 200/400 but the actual selector rod and the sleeve around it are the same.

The PG1 and PG2 gearboxes suffer from a wobbly gear linkage, which can make the gearchange rather vague.

I've seen people replace the universal joint with one from the steering column of various Rover group cars (a very popular mod on Rovertech), but I reckon that many of them are missing the real culprit - wear around the hole in the UJ where the roll pin goes through to secure the linkage to the selector rod.

Here's the UJ in question. It's secured to the gearbox selector rod by a roll pin that has to be driven out. The roll pin is usually stuck fast and VERY hard to shift!


I put a piece of metal rod into the offending holes to show where they are (in case you didn't know). The problem lies in wear in these holes meaning that they don't grip the roll pin properly - mine were worn enough to allow 10 degrees of rotation before the gear selector rod in the gearbox actually moved! The actual UJ was nice and tight - despite 104,000 miles and nearly 19 years.


To fix this you can weld on a new UJ (stuff that!), weld up the holes and re-drill (awkward), cut it off and fit a steering UJ or replace the roll pin with a bolt and clamp it down tight (much easier). For this last option I cut a slot through both sides of the sleeve on the linkage so that when the bolt is done up the sleeve will clamp tight to the selector rod:


I then shaped a couple of washers to fit the sleeve and put a 5/16" diameter high tensile bolt (about 1 1/4" long) through the sleeve and selector rod. Once tightened up with a nylock nut, the sleeve compresses onto the selector rod and grips it tight (this is why the slot was cut in the sleeve).




The result is amazing - nice, tight and more importantly accurate gearchange. All for the sake of about an hour under the car.

HAhhahaha, That is exactly the same mod I made to my 600 a while ago.

Some models don't need the slot cutting in it as the tube is thin enough to deform when the bolt is tightened, however some do as they have a much thicker section tube. I use an allen cap bolt with two nyloc nuts on it to stop it from vibrating off.

The UJ mod you talk about usually clamps onto the gear selector rod rather than using the silly roll pin so you get rid of both sets of play all at once. I've done the UJ mod to Lindz's 200, and your mod to my 600. The maestro turbo simply has the roll pin replaced with an allen cap bolt and some nylocs and then done up tight to clamp the tube to the rod rather than rely on the bolt for location.

All make a very positive difference to the feel of the gearshift. No more stirring porridge with the gearstick for me!

I need to do this on mine, i swear i can move my gearstick about a foot when its in gear haha

Just checked this out while changing the gearbox. And my actual inkage has worn badly, so its not the sleeve causing the movement its wear on the metal bracket with the pin going through it.
Guess this means i have to change the whole linkage which is a bit of a bitch of a job :(

Ah well, you can't win them all.