let me just chip in here.
I know Mark Voigts (son of) as he comes to our club meetings. Production of their gearbox conversion is now stalled indefinitely. There is some health problems in the family and also they can no longer find anyone to do the machining of the new castings. The castings are in stock but it seems no one will do small orders anymore. They even have the machinery but no one to do it, and have to run the rest of the business as well so there is little chance in the near future.
They have made over 150 of these conversions to date.
Watch this space as they say but don`t hold your breath.
Sorry
Eric in Burnley
1967 S3SE DHC
I tried for 2 years to buy one of their t9 5 speed conversions, but always seemed to be at the ‘back of the line’, i.e. “give us a few months and we should be able to ship”. Finally gave up and went with a T5.
Wow, that’s a shame. Hope the health situation improves and they can find a machinist. Their offering is a real contribution to the Elan community.
The 5 speed in my sister’s plus 2 had a terrible gear change. It’s never going to be as good as a 4 speed, but it turned out the culprit was the terrible Ford gear lever. It slides through a plastic bush to give reverse on a Ford box which isn’t required. It should be almost an interference fit. Hers had 1/4” clearance round the lever. And then it just came off in my hand one day. You can only remove and refit so many times before the tin lock plates fatigue off.
I don’t think oems are still available and speaking to people who’d worked in Ford dealer parts departments they didn’t have fond memories.
Not cheap but I got a curved Quaife rose-jointed lever, and had the original one cut & joined to it via a sleeve to give the same height. I also dumped the plastic Cortina? gaiter. It was so stiff it had broken up the casing over the transmission tunnel. Leather one looks so much better.
2 benefits, the Quaife curve moves the knob back into a better position with more clearance between knuckle and dash; &
a much more precise change with a clearly defined gate. I’d never realised that the sideways movenent across from 1 to 3 measured differently to 3 to 5.
I’d say it was perfectly acceptable now.
If you do go the route, the boxes (but not the bell housings) were also fitted to early 2 litre engines. Check the bell housing isn’t cracked. Ours was. It had chewed its way through a ridiculous number of starter motors before the fault was discovered.
You may also find a bell housing to fit a BMW 5 speed box. Only ever seen one advertised on eBay v
Can you elaborate which Quaife fits the 5 speed maxi box? I have the Lotus 5 speed in my 68 S3 and it works well for my longer trips on the Autobahn. The shift is not as good as the 4 speed, but then this is one of the best for its time. My +2 lever is slowly disintegrating, both the ball and the lock plates, so I am looking for a Plan B.
There are more choices now than when I bought and I can’t find it on the Burton site. But this link in the Quaife site shows the choices. Ford Sierra 5-Speed Gear Lever - Quaife Online Shop
I’m pretty sure I didn’t get the Caterham version and the longer one needed extending to get the knob the same height but farther back than the original.
I’ve tried to upload a pic of the base of an original lever, I doubt yours is as bad, and one showing the Quaife fitted with sleeve.
Also one fitted with I think a Cortina Mk 4 leather gaiter.
If you can’t get these to open I’m happy to mail them direct to your email, but I’ve spent about half an hour getting this far.
I’d mail Quaife with a pic of the base of your existing lever, and explain you want a curved lever which will need to be extended post purchase.
I’ve got Greg Z’s former Lotus 5-speed in my +2 and the experience has been good overall. I don’t know if my original 4-speed was a bad example but I don’t miss it. It worked just fine but I didn’t think there was anything magical about the shifting -even a bit on the notchy side- and I CONSTANTLY found myself wanting another gear. I was also never able to get the drain-plug to stop leaking.
The lever was the aspect of the 5 that took the most mental bandwidth and time to make work. The original Ford levers mounted with a plastic thread that screwed into the top of the transmission. Those are pretty much all worn-out by now, as were the ones that came with my transmission. I found what was supposed to be a repro of the OEM lever on eBay from a merchant in Turkey. Out of the box it looked OK but the threads were too small diameter to engage the threads in the hole! The only other option I found was a racing-type lever from Burton (similar to the Quaife type linked above) that was only available straight and has the spherical bearing located lower down, making for short shifts. I had to bend it myself to keep my knuckles from going through the radio in the odd-numbered gears, not difficult to do with a small press but otherwise it fit well with a nice metal thread that engages very securely. I had a local machinist make me a reproduction of the small cover that the lever screws-into so that it would have nice fresh threads and I also had him include space at the top of the threads to stick an O-ring in there to keep the oil inside. The lever is a good high-quality item but the short shifting took some getting used to! The fore/aft throws are only a couple of inches and the lateral movement when going from 2 to 3 is insanely small, more of a subtlety than a movement. And of course the short throw means much higher effort too. It doesn’t like to go into first without a solid nudge. I’m using the gaiter from the 4-speed with it and it’s not ideal as the range of motion is different and it makes the rubber bend inwards along the sides quite a bit. I’d prefer a leather type over rubber anyway but the only other option I can see is to have something specially made as all the generic ready-made ones I’ve seen are designed to cover a much larger hole than what the 4-speed gaiter attaches to. And this lever has a larger thread that fits the 5-speed knob but I like the more perfectly-spherical shape of the 4-speed knob much better (the 5 knob looks generally spherical but is lightly oval and also seems to be of a lower quality of woodwork and finish).
But once I got used to the short throws it became a good 'box to use. The lower first is great for the +2 but probably superfluous (or sub-fluous?) in something as light as an Elan. 2 And 3 are close-enough to the ratios in the four-speed that I doubt anybody would notice a difference, 4 is direct of course, and 5 makes high-speed driving more civilised for sure. This is important here in the USA where our roads are usually rather fast, especially the larger motorways you need for going greater distances than putting about the countryside.
I’m happy enough with it that I’ll leave it in the car until it breaks. If a better gear-lever should become available or if I can find a way to have one made for reasonable money I’d definitely pursue that.