Column Shift (I) ...

25 December 2017

 

Fiddling the column shift in ...

The Pickup has the front seat bench, which is a mandatory item for me. Two seats is not an option. The "Specialists" from the beginning told me "no way", i. e. no space to adapt whatsoever.

Well Juergen and I fiddled for a full two days, modified massively nearly all parts of the mechanical link to the gearbox and ... tata ... found a way to integrate it. We had to change, shorten and extend levers and a fully custom made rod towards the M117 gearbox was made. So we should be able to finally shift from P all the way down to "2".

Column Shift (II) ...

6 October 2018

 

Modifiying the column shift ...

Although we had massively modified the levers, unfortunately - even with further mods on the gearbox side - it was just missing a tad to switch from P to 2. Also, after the test drive, it became apparent, that the stuff was too close to the motor.

So we started to change the column shift from levers to cable. I have used the cable and shifter from a Mitsubishi Carisma from 2000; they still had the P-R-N-D-3-2-1, so a relatively long cable pulling distance.

This length is exactly enough to switch the M117 automatic; both ends were modified, so that they fitted the "old" MB parts. We're not finished completely, but it will work ...

Column Shift (III) ...

13 October 2018

 

Column shift finished ...

So the idea worked out … we could fit the "Mitsubishi" cable. We used one original bracket to fix the cable; one we hand-built. The 75mm pulling distance was just enough; we can shift gear from P to 2.

On the gearbox side, we connected the cable bar (Diameter 5mms) with a M10 screw by drilling a 4mm hole into the srew incl. a M5 thread. The 5mm cable bar got an outside thread M5 … so we could both fit together.

With this setup, we could use the original R107 connector to the gearbox (M10 thread). So it is assured that by turning that connector you can fine adjust the lever way.

Column Shift (IV) ...

11 March 2019

 

More fiddling with the Column shift ...

As I have modified the column shift so much, the lever way is actually around 22% longer than original. Therefore the original shift pattern at the end of the steering column is too small.

So I "rolled" the old pattern on a piece of paper and increased all measures by 22% and printed that on an address sticker.

Before that I already bought a one metre aluminium pipe, 60mm Diameter, 3mm thick, as the new pattern. Glued the new pattern on the aluminium and started "manual labour" ;-)