Well, my first reminder of the downside of XM ownership was not long in coming, but at least it didn't cost anything!

All I did was pull away and turn right at a set of traffic lights.

Then, as I reached for second gear, the gear lever went all limp and floppy. At least it had the good grace to select second so that the thing kept moving until I could find somewhere safe to park up.

That awfull sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach didn't last long as I remembered that this had happened to me once before with my original XM, so It didn't take me long to work out what had happened.

So, it's out of the car and make the long walk round to the passenger door, find the bonnet latch and make the pleasant discovery that both bonnet props still work and it raises up and stays put! So something hydraulic still works!

If you've not met the floppy gear lever thing yet, don't worry, it's one of the easier faults to repair.



You need to squint down between the back of the engine and the bulkhead. (Keep a small torch handy in the car, you're gonna need it) Stand by the nearside front wheel and point the torch down the rather small gap between the camshaft cover on the top of the engine and the bulkhead. There is a linkage mechanism fixed to the end of the gear lever stuff that wends its way into the gearbox. It consits of a couple of rusty steel rods joined together in sort of a Z shape. One of the rods has circular ends with a rubber polo mint shaped bush at each end. These rubbers push over the ball ends on two other rods to keep everything connected together whilst allowing the whole thing some flexibility to move when the gear lever moves.

This all works reasonably well until the rubbers begin to perish and become a little loose. An exuberant heave on the gear lever will then cause one or other to pop off and disconnect the lever from the gearbox, leaving it just flopping around in your hand.

The fix is simple. Just grab the two loose ends and push the rubber over the ball end of the other link. The problem is, the gap between the camshaft cover and the bulkhead is rather small. You may be tempted to grab the nearest child under about 10 years of age, as his hand will fit nicely into the gap. Unfortunately it probably won't be long enough to reach the parts.

You may therefor want to allow things under the bonnet to cool down a little before you roll your sleeve up. Now would be a good time to find somewhere you can purchase the medication you will soon need to apply to the burns and abrasions you are about to receive.

It's worth persevering with this because it won't be the last time you need to do it. And it might be dark next time. And you probably won't have that torch I told you to keep in the car!

The photograph above shows the bits you are looking for. In this instance the joint has come apart, but the loose end has fallen further onto the shaft, leaving the rubber fixed in place. The gearchange still works in this position, but things are a little sloppy!

If you want to get all professional about this the part you need to replace is a small dumb bell shaped piece of metal about 5 or 6 inches long with those rubber things in the ends. Once you've worked out how to get your hand into the required position, it only takes a couple of minutes to replace and the good news is the last time I bought one it only cost me about £7.00 or so, but that was about ten years ago. Factor in a little bit of inflation and it still should not be too expensive.