Hello Ron,
very nice and extraordinarily polite. I just tried to get the attention to a circuit which will work without timers. Using timers for gear indication depending on engine rpm is certainly the wrong way - especially driving in mountainous terrain! Do you agree?
The CD4026 is a multistage Johnson counter decoding the outputs for a seven segment numerical display.
Of course the display would be of equal brightness if there was a current limiting resistor for each segment.
A live circuit built for my friend doesn't show significant brightness changes if six (numeric 0) or just two (numeric 1) segments are being driven. The indicator counts to the valid gear indication as soon as the shifter returns to the neutral position, which is the position after the gear definitely has changed.
If the OP is interested he might contact me using the PM function to provide his email address to send him the source and hex-file. He might go another way and find the circuit at ELEKTOR paying for it.
The circuit description is easily to understand by reading the net names on the schematic. The CD4026 does of course not count down. That's why it receives a RESET while shifting gears. With every movement of the shift lever the counter starts at zero when shifting to a lower gear.
I won't provide links in order to leave some work to you.
Last not least I wonder how a forum member with 7,512 posts has such a negative attitude.