Good point, I hadn't even considered anything dropping "through" the gear lever...my drill bit was a snug fit though, and I think the natural "springiness" of the lever would hold it in place.?
Yes i also used 6mm drill bit which was very snug and all was going well, it hadnt fallen through or anything, however with some movement of the gear level it dropped through.
doh.
oh well i have managed to retreive it, and now i know
how to remove the long centre consol around the handbrake and gear level
Stupid question as I assume you've watched the videos, you're undoing the circular clips on the selector cables all the way and locking them in the "released" position first, right?
No worries not a not stupid question as i often ask the obvious on here as many people forget the most basic steps.. but in this case yes i had released the cable springs and secured them in the released positon.
For the selector I had no problems pushing it down, the "home" position isn't in neutral, from memory it's kind of halfway towards where second is? That's normal, because the home position on the box itself isn't neutral either, hence the slight pushing down. I assume it's designed like that so that there's the upward pressure on the selector from the springs to keep it in place whereas in neutral there's no forces acting on it.
Ive managed to get it done now, although only after experimenting a bit.
It seems to me that the 'home position is in fact in neutral, but to the far left so that the gear lever is between 1st and 2nd gears... However for some reason when i locked it in this postion (this time i found that a 4mm allen key was a pretty good fit and avoided the previous potential issue) the chrome selector still would not move down at all.
So i went through the procedure and did it with the gear selector sitting in the resting position, (ie sitting between 3rd and 4th) - know i know this isnt correct, so i then secured the gear level in the correct home postion with the allen key and tried again and this time it worked...
not really sure why it wouldnt before, unless it had been incorrectly adjucted previously by persons unknown..
Been out in the car and its definately better than it was before, less notchy.
