After installing the MUD Dash it became even more apparent the LT85 gearbox has a little more ‘throw’ compared to the LT77 or R380 .  Part of the issue is the MUD dash now protrudes from the dash  rather then being flush by about 3 inches.

To resolve the constant bashing of buttons you can either bend the gear stick or extend it, I decided to extend as bending the stick will just make it sit lower to the floor when selecting 2nd and 4th and in an upright positing it isn’t to hand as I would like it be.

Extending the gear stick will give it a rally look, gone are the days of shortening a gear stick for a ‘quick-shift’ look as you just need to move your arm/hand further down! These days if you don’t have paddle shift its a better idea to bring the gear knob up as close to the steering wheel as possible, thus less movement to be able to change a gear.

The Land Rover 90/Defender with a LT85 gearbox has 15mm (approx.) solid gear stick with a thread cut into the end.

To Extend the stick I simply ground down the existing thread and cut a new 12mm thread, M10.

With the new thread this allows a threaded extender to screw on the newly cut gear stick.

Using a high tensile steel bolt (8.8 – apparently this is the bolt rating meaning its high-tensile steal) with a 12mm thread simply tighten that into the extender you have screwed onto the newly cut thread. Change the bolt length to what suits you best.

Adding some spare black PolyBush’s lying around gives it a nice loo, with a bit of Gorilla glue the new gear knob is going nowhere.