How do I shift?

I press the clutch in with my left foot, and move the gear selector in an "h" type pattern from 1 to 6. The proper way! 

Clutch pedal, 5 gears, wheelspin in 1st on wet roads. Park in reverse gear if you want to get the keys out...
And i want an ECU update to 185hp...

ShaneG wrote on Nov 29^th, 2009 at 6:39am:


I also learned that with trucks- not semis, but rather old Ford and Mercedes straight jobs. The problem with this vehicle is that it sometimes just won't go in the slot despite any amount of finessing with clutch and throttle. No clashing gears or anything (except for the reverse thing, sometimes)- it just won't go. I can double-clutch and feather it all day and it just will not engage. I get what you are saying about the flywheel and clutch plate, but I've found that the technique described usually doesn't work. I'll have to coast in neutral up to a stop, blipping and trying like crazy to get it in gear- any gear- and it just won't go half the time.  I used to see 5.0 drivers doing this approaching red lights and think "OK, a-hole, we get it, it's a big V-8"... now I know what they were really doing.


Hagar wrote on Nov 29^th, 2009 at 6:56am:


Yes. it is cable-actuated- and it is "self adjusting", which may need adjusting, itself.
I finally checked the Haynes manual, and they recommend checking it by pulling up on the clutch pedal, then pushing it in and listening for a "click". Did that, heard the click, and it immediately was happier. I'd thought it was the gearbox (not something I want to mess with), but this is different (something I might mess with).
So the next step may be to make sure that whole mechanism is rigged right. I guess it's worth doing, despite having to remove the steering wheel to do it... whoever last worked on this (and it was recently) mis-aligned the steering wheel when they put it back on, apparently, and I've been meaning to fix that, it drives me batty. Can't take a quick look at the water temp without turning left...