Abstract: A gear shifting apparatus includes a fork shaft, a plurality of shift forks, an operation lever, a received member, a receiving member and a groove. The received member is fastened on the fork shaft. The receiving member is disposed in a housing, and slidably receives an end of the received member. The groove is formed in one of the received member and the receiving member, and engages with the other one of the received member and the receiving member so as to define the movement of the fork shaft in the selecting direction. Thus, the shift forks can be slid smoothly on the fork shaft, because no load is applied to the shift forks in the selecting direction which results in the torsion between the shift forks and the fork shaft and finally in the excessive sliding resistance therebetween.

Abstract: A shift lever supporting mechanism for supporting a shift lever in a manual transmission and having a shift lever retainer, the shift lever having an enlarged spherical portion retained in the shift lever retainer through sphere-to-sphere engagement so that the shift lever is pivotally moved for performing the selecting and shifting operations. The shift lever includes a hollow support provided on the enlarged spherical portion of the shift lever and aligned with a rotational axis of the enlarged spherical portion for the shifting operations of the shift lever, at least one spherical member received in the hollow support, a spring received in the hollow support for biasing the spherical member, and at least one cam portion provided on the shift lever retainer and having at least one inclined cam surface. The at least one spherical member is urged to the at least one cam portion by a spring force of the spring.