doglanta

Hi,
Has anyone else had a problem installing a heel - toe shifter from Rivco? I got mine in the mail today and started to throw it on when I found that it did not fit. The hole in the new Rivco shifter and the pivot shafter that goes in this hole are virtually the same size. There is no way that shaft will fit in that hole. I have emailed them a little while ago but I just wanted to see if anyone else has run into this?


This picture shows how the pivot shaft will not fit inside the new shifters hole.

doglanta

I just talked to Rich of Rivco. He suggested I try and take a dowel rod with sandpaper wrapped around it and sand the inside of shifter hole. Inside the hole is a brass bushing. He said that this brass bushing is pressed in at the shop and then the hole is honed out to the proper diameter to accept the pivot bolt. It looks like the hole was not honed enough on mine but before I send it back I guess I will try and see what I can do with sandpaper. I have a cylinder wall hone but it is way too big to fit in this shifter hole. He agreed with me that I should not have to do this and that the part should have been correct in the first place but he was as helpful as he could be so I will try the sandpaper. I just think I may have too much to remove with just sandpaper.....

Molinoman

You'd be surprised, brass is pretty soft, I don't think it would take too much to widen the hole evenly for a nice snug fit. BJ I am talking about the Rivco shifter not sheep.
Dennis

bigern2300

A brake hone on a cordless drill would work nicely. Bigern

doglanta

OK, I finally got the H/T shifter installed yesterday. I ended up having to purchase a brake cylinder hone (thanks to bigern2003's suggestion). With the hone I was able to take off enough of the sleeve, and removed it evenly and smoothly, to allow the pivot bolt to slide in the hole.

So the install that should have taken me less than 30 minutes took me about three hours and required me to spend money on a special tool to complete the installation. I have tried all sorts of different adjustments but after the H/T install I seem to have trouble finding first gear when downshifting when I never had this problem with the stock shifter. I think part of the problem may be the unbalanced weight of the shifter not allowing it to click itself back in position after shifting. The unit is heavier on the heel area than the toe shifter. This is just a guess by me and I will continue to see what I can do with the adjustments available.

The other problem I found was getting the unit to be tight and without a lot of slop. I personally would like to see the shifter not have as much side to side play as it does. The instructions say that if there is a lot of play to add a second wave washer which I tried. But when I added a second washer it made the spacers now too thick and when I torqued the bolt it would not allow the shifter to rock up and down. So I had to remove the second washer and live with the excess play. I probably would be good if I had another washer that was only half as thick but these wave washers are already pretty thin to start with. It's amazing how much the thickness of one very thin wave washer makes. I may see what I can come up with, but I am kind of disappointed that I should have to do this.
Would I buy this H/T shifter again? After all of the fabrication I had to do and the fit not as good as I would have liked probably not. I will say the couple of people I talked to at Rivco were very nice and helpful, I am just not in love with their heel/toe shifter.