1st Gear Issues

Morning All

Part of the long runnning saga of this iffy 53 plate Ambiente that I acquired is with the gear selection, mainly 1st and it being very hard to enter unless you're at a complete stop.

I was looking at the selector mechanism on Saturday and I can see 2 possible problems...

That pipe looking thing appears to be the main ground wire which bolts to the engine block. As you can see this runs very close to the selector mech, in fact it runs through the gulley in the ring that has the white plastic shoe around it. You can see this better in the next shot...

The other thing I noticed is the counter weight arm is very close to what ever that black plastic thing is with a bolt through below the battery cover. In fact from that photo and this...

I looks like a rust mark suggesting it is hitting.

Can anyone confirm where their ground cable runs and whether thay also thing tha counter weight is too close - and what I can do to change this.

Tom