355 6-speed shift linkage adjustment

I recently finished adjusting the shift linkage on my fathers 355, thought I would share the experience since there are not many threads on the topic. Well, there are a lot of "my 355 doesn't shift well" threads.

Ever since putting the engine back in the car, 1st and 2nd gear was very difficult to engage even with the car off. So this ruled out a hydraulics issue. I found if I started in reverse, and kept the shifter as far to the left as possible, both gears engaged perfectly. So this pointed to the rotating adjustment (held by three allen screws).

I found a thread instructing to put the car in third, and center the shifter side of the shaft. This "setting" was a night and day improvement.
Being the curious little weasel I am, decided to play around with this.
Centering the shaft in 4th was better then when I started, worse than using 3rd.
Centering the adjustment with 1st engaged resulted in absolutely perfect 1st and 2nd engagement. This made it impossible to find 5th and 6th. So back to adjusting it in 3rd.
In an effort to try and smooth things out a bit more, I loosened the four screws holding down the shift gate. I held the shifter as far to the left as I could while tightening the screws. This actually helped, so now I’m tinking about installing the shift gate from Ricambi

I drove the car around for about an hour, purposely in town grabbing 1st and 2nd as much as possible. Every now and then, 2nd was a bit tight downshifting. Double clutching solved that (I usually double clutch when downshifting anyway, so does my father so no big deal here). Shifting this car is now on par with my Porsche (not kidding) in every gear.

Hope this helps, I’m sure some of the pros are rolling their eyes while thinking “no kidding, damn armatures”……

 

Thanks Hacker, you've provided us "non-pros" with some very helpful Posts.