Is there a miracle gearshift cure?

[CMF_russell_nash]

My old K11 has a gear shift (manual) that is bloody awful and was when it was new. Nissan didn't care less at the time and never fixed it, although they claimed to have done a variety of things such as changing the gearbox and replacing the oil with synthetic. I believe this is not an unusual problem, at the time there was someone who wrote into "what car" and they ended up recommending that she got an automatic, probably not what she was looking for.
The main problem at the time was that it was hard to get into 2nd gear. That is still the case, but it has major trouble going into 1st on a down change now (once again I believe this is common) but it is much worse than it was.
Anyway, I was wondering, did anybody ever find a way of making a major improvement to the smoothness of the gear shift?
Thanks.

 

[CMF_Yom]

Are you trying to shift into 1st while the car is moving?

You shouldn't be trying to slot it into 1st if you're doing more than about 15km/hr. Not many cars out there will let you do this without great difficulty. THe synchros have to do alot of work for this particular shift movement. Try slipping it in neutral, release the clutch, blip the throttle and before the revs come down depress the clutch pedal and then try slotting it into 1st. Will take a few runs to get this technique right but if you figure it out properly you essentially stop all wear on synchros but more importantly you'll be able to use pretty much any manual gearbox without crunching... no matter how stuffed the synchros are.

 

[CMF_russell_nash]

Thanks. I think the method you describe is something like what my grandad used to call double declutching, which he used to have to do back in 1935! I will persevere at it. Really though, the whole gear shift is and was ridiculously bad and I was just wondering if anyone managed to sort out the same problem for themselves.

 

[CMF_Yom]

Thats it. I play with it everynow and again because its kinda fun but I don't do it regularly. Micra's pedals arent really setup very well for it so its a bit dangerous doing it around other traffic.

I personally don't have a problem with the K11's gearshift. It feels like most other FWD gearboxes to me.. notchy and lifeless. Nissan have made much nicer FWD gearboxes in my opinion.