Just popped into Morissons in the tourer and look what happened.

As a complete novice to the 7, exactly what is that broken part?

Looks very much like a broken gear stick,I have heard that a pair of molegrips attatched to the piece still protruding from the gearbox allows a get you home remedy.

Its the gear lever, a classic case of" it came off in me 'and guv". Any metallurgists out there care to comment? The metal is about 1cm diameter at the point where it fractured.
Regards Andy

This is not an unusual occurrence, one of the essential spares to have under the back seat.

This happened to me on the PWA7 club "Sevens to the Seas" run last year in my RN saloon. I didn't have a spare, and the stub was too short to get a grip with mole grips. My only option was recovery, and we returned home on the back of a lorry! Needless to say, I do now carry a spare under the back seat!
Ashley

One of the possible causes is the groove turned into the shaft to take the small spring clip which holds the gear change map ( or whatever that bit is called ! ) This groove most likely has sharp corners at the bottom of the groove rather than rounded, a know way of weakening a shaft. ( If you ever have a crank reground mak sure they radius the ends of the journals where they meet the webs of the crankshaft. )

Your gear lever appears to have been cracked for some time by the appearance of the rusty section of the break.

A GEAR STICK!!! Lord I had better get hold of a spare then. What are the other ESSENTIAL spares best to carry? Bearing in mind I'm already short of space!

Fear Not David. Although a classic break, It happened to me about 4 weeks ago whilst driving a arrow sports, dont carry a spare it only happens every 30 years! Talking about carrying bits . I had a short half shaft under my back seat for at least the same lenght of time, and never used it...

I find the best things to carry are my phone with dad's number in it and an RAC card!

Had the ball at the end of the gear lever fracture and fall into the box on a 1925 Chummy about 40 years ago(FU 4224) but we were outside a breakers at the time ,just removed the ball which had landed on top of a gear and get another lever from the breakers and we were on our way again.