Yeah, you aren't kidding, you nearly have to disassemble a lot of the back part of the model just to put that tan frictionless pin. I decided to just take the boom off and rebuild the whole thing, and it does shift somewhat better, wish I had had known about this before I assembled the first time, but since the set was released in summer 2010 and I built it as soon as the upgraded LA's were shipped because of that issue, I wish I was aware of this problem with the changeover function so I could have installed the right gears and the pin...ah well one day I'll get to it...

I had the same problem with shifting, so I replaced the gray 5 legnth shaft from the motor with a 4 legnth so that it no longer was in the double friction pin. With this set up I found it shifted too fast so that it was impossible to hit neutral. So I also changed the gearing as was mentioned before and kept the blue friction pin. Taking it apart to change the parts isnt so hard, but getting it back together is a very big challenge with many shafts to insert and gears to have lined up. It works great now with consistant fast shifts and the ability to get it in neutral.

Just bought this set second hand and saw this thread.
Although it's old it helped me, so that is why I'm replying.

The solution is:
Use a black 4 length shaft (instead of the grey 5 length), and more importantly use a gear with 12 teeth and a gear with 20 teeth! (the combination of an 8-24-gear does not fit with an L-shaped beam later on in the building process)

A link to a nice summary:
(FYI: for me the ''making the left track running smoothly" did not work)

 

 

Edited February 19, 20232 yr by Lukaz