Hi Stuart,
Thanks for your detailed reply. From what I've experienced, the order you have for attaching the shifting rods is reversed, as gears 2 & 3 (high) are the "default" settings at the gate, and the lower gate is what controls both the higher gear shifting and the position of the shifter lever in the cab. Be that as it may, I have tried loosening the rods and moving the 2-3 gear rod into its 2nd gear detent and then tightening the clamp on it. That hasn't seemed to help. The rod/tranny side lever doesn't seem to lock in any deeper as a result.
Bushings are all new (rubber), The manual says in neutral the gearshift lever should be horizontal, which would seem to indicate the 3:00 position. That alignment is fine, and the gates as I have them set are working without interference. Where I ran into trouble with the specs was the distance between the bottom of the steering wheel and the top of the gearshift lever. Specs call for it to be 2-13/16" +/- 1/8". Set to match those specs, the gearshift lever was not perpendicular to the steering wheel as it should be, but rather pointed upward making the operation of the shifting gates impossible. I moved the gear box up the steering wheel shaft until the lever was perpendicular and the shifting mechanism had equal amounts of movement in all directions.
It is possible that there's a misadjustment at the point where the upper and lower control rods are clamped together, however they seated nicely when I put that assembly back together. That could account for the inability to align the steering wheel-to-shift lever to specs, I suppose. However I am not sure that a misadjustment there would result in my losing 2nd gear.
For what it's worth, the R-1 gear detent is a little flimsy in gear 1, making the adjustment of that rod trickier. What I mean by that is that when shifting from 1 into neutral, there seems to be a little play in the detent; it doesn't snap into neutral, although a slight upward movement of the lever seats it properly. Until I made my recent ajustments I was having a problem with the gear box jamming between 1st and 2nd due to this softness in the detent. Now it shifts fine, except for the improper seating of gear 2.
Do you suppose this could all have to do with weak springs in the transmission side cover? Or perhaps some dirt/crud buildup in the tranny?
