Gear selector, cable type, wheres the gate??

The answer, unfortunately, is "It depends". Some have a gate on the gear lever mount and a rod linkage, some use two bowden cables to connect the gear lever to the remote housing on top of the gearbox, which contains the gate, some use a rod linkage with the gate on the gearbox.

The easiest one for you would probably be the Scania comfort shift type, which has a stubby gear lever on a seat mount, and a pneumatically operated gearbox with electronic control. You could extend the lever for floor mounting without too much bother.

If you want to keep up to date, most coaches and buses now are supplied with automatic boxes, some with a manual override.

The easiest answer is probably to buy a gear lever, and make a base unit to suit your needs.

You'll need a lever pivoted in two planes with the other end going over a series of indents with a spring loaded plunger. Most auto selectors are like this - but in only one plane.

Routemaster buses used to have something similar?

i have the auto gearbox thing sorted for the city buses, just a set of 5 square buttons to select 1,2,D,N,R, based on the simulator 'omsi' which started as a bus driving sim for berlin set in 1989, MAN SD200 and 202 buses, other city buses people have modeled use the same gear selection, appart from one russian bus that uses a colum change and a button for reverse, but again no probs to select the auto gears using my buttons,

one ikarus bus is manual for the sim, hence the gear stick build, and when euro truck simulator 2 comes out i'll want to use the gear selector for that... tho it's based on modern trucks, prolly sequential boxes or at least short gear levers mounted in a good location,

i'm guessing 6 gates plus reverse is all i need, then range change and splitter buttons on the gear knob, so if i can just find a car's gear stick and selector box that's all in one unit, and 6 speed of course, i'm sorted,

At least some versions of the Routemaster had a miniature gearlever on the side of the steering column complete with gate. Which I assume was coupled to the box by some form of servo. Wouldn't have been a six speed, though. But if you could find a description of it, might give you an idea about how best to make what you want.

Many wires leading to electrically controlled air cylinders operating the brake bands in the automatic gearbox, with pneumatic interlocks and only four speeds plus reverse. Also with an option to be lazy and just leave it in top gear for full auto operation.

Similar system on the Bristol RE coaches and VR buses. Early Leyland Leopards were completely pneumatic, later ones and Tigers went electro-pneumatic, all with a floor mounted pedestal holding the stubby little gear lever.

You could try calling your nearest commercial vehicle dismantlers and ask about a Scania or Volvo comfort shift lever. They're very reliable, so should be easily available from scrapped vehicles due to lack of demand.

Remember seeing them, got called to a breakdown once where a film crews make up bus had a dead battery, he could have got home if it werent for him loosing the gears when the battery died, didnt have a 6 volt bus battery in the breakdown wagon, but he had an onboard genny and a large boost/start battery charger, so rigged it up so he ran the genny, with the battery charger connected to keep the dead battery going, it worked and he got home, boss was pleased as they had a set of new batteries waiting for it, if i'd have had one it'd have cost them a few hundered quids.

Only commercial dismantler i know of is fox covert at worksop, but they are more vans than trucks, tho i could call them, never know, i wonder how much i'd be looking at for one tho, had a quick loon on fleabay, for I shift, easy shift and comfort shift, but nowt that i can see,

it'd be really good if i could find a bus breakers, as i'd really like to get hold of an old IBIS, the jobbie you set the destination display up on, controls the ticket validators on german buses etc, i only really need the switch panel, as it'll again be interfaced to the computer as a set of buttons, and assigned in the sim to the correct functions,

hell, i could really go mad and get some crank handles with rotary encoders on them to operate the roller destination display buses, prolly be cheaper to just get a job as a bus driver then i can play with the real thing :)

just been googling, found:

i have made replicas of the push button 1 2 D N R selectors on that page, tho mine dont light up, but mine cost me nothing to make (had the switches, they were those ones that push one in the other pops out, but only aranged in 2 gangs, no way to link them, so they just push and release now, put some red vinyl over one of em, and made the letters and numbers on the vinyl cutter)

but if i had the money, i could really go to town on that site, they do the routemaster selectors (tho no routemasters available in omsi yet) and the i shift style ones, but it's about 400 quid for a re-con i-shifter!!! and it's not the H gate one either, an up / down style with D/N/R selections, pretty similar to the one in my smart car,

i have actually made a shifter box, but not added switches to it yet or owt, it's a bit heath robinson, cabinet catches hold the rod forwards and backwards, gate made from perspex, left/right pivot made from buts of wood and angle brackets, and a spring which the rod goes into to centre it and give the movement without a ball joint, and it'll do the job if it has to, but i'd really like a real gear selector as it'll feel so much better,

so i guess i really need to find a friendly local-ish bus breaker, as i want to get a bus drivers seat at some time too, and a steering colum, wheel and colum switches, but that'd also need an arcade machines force feedback motor unit, and a servo amplifier to take the signal from my 900 degree 'toy' steering wheel i have now,

Bodges 'R' Us. I used to do that sortof thing for a living.

If you search for commecial vehicle dismantlers, Snows come up in Goucestershire as the top link for me, and there used to be a place in Bromyard. Unfortunately, Wombwell Diesels near Bradford closed down without telling me.

The Bromyard people are still in buiness:-

And get paid (poorly) for it. ;-)

The course requires a couple or three grand in cash or signing your soul over to the Company for anything up to two years.

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