SHIFTERS
- Does anyone know how to remove the shifter knob? I tried to
unscrew it to no avail and I also tried to pull the leather cover down
to see if screws were visible but I could not get it all the way
down. Did not want to break it. If there is anyone who could walk me
thru this, I would really appreciate it.
-
Merlin Johnson (d...@connectnet.com)
The shift knob IS screwed on to the shaft, I have heard of a few
people being able to unscrew the knob, but not many. It's like the
nylon type plastic in the knob as formed around the threads of the
shaft. After going through major convulsions trying to loosen the
knob by hand and stretching the cover, I got out a big pipe
wrench. After about 10 minutes with that, and several scary twists
of the shaft (didnt want to break the shift fork) I gave up. The
knob was pretty thrashed up by now so I got out the utility knife
and cut away the rubber knob. The damn thing is pretty much cast on
the shaft with a little itty bitty plastic "nut" at the top of the
knob, I had the crack the damn nut to get it off. There are no
extra anythings holding the knob on, you just have to twist it
off.
Patrick Yagle (y...@eng02.psf.lmco.com)
I was able to remove and re-use the stock shift knob. It was
difficult to remove, though. I had to wrap it in a towel, park a
Chevy Caprice on top of it (my car wasn't heavy enough!), and put a
large screwdriver through the end of it to unscrew it. But it was
worth it ... no scratches/stretching of the leather.
- Short Shifter Installation...
-
Donald J. Dale (d...@phoenix.princeton.edu)
See my instructions
on Jim Wright's Maintenance
Page.
- If you hit the top of your knob when in neutral, do you get
the cool "BONG" from the rod hitting the shield? Doesn't really
bother me, but has anybody performed a little hammer on shield job or
something for this?
-
Gary W. Mahan (g...@venus.ssd.loral.com)
I originally got this also. I fixed it by using spacers between
the heat shield and the body. It took approx 4 stacked washers
before the rubbing went away (total of 16 washers). This mod only
takes about 5 minutes and is cheap.
Rick Zotz (r...@zotz.com)
I hammered a depression into the middle of the shield. No scrape.
No "BONG".
Donald J. Dale (d...@phoenix.princeton.edu)
Yup. Take off the heat shield and lay it on your driveway. Have a
friend stand straddling the "arch" and compressing it with his
feet. Give it a few good whacks. Should be fine.
- I'm installing a shifter in my G20. Could you remove the
rubber boot [found at the base of the shifter] from the car?
Or did you do a little boot stretching job? There seemed to be two
permanent type bolts holding the bottom area of the bracket inside my
car.
-
Rick Zotz (r...@zotz.com)
Not sure what the G20 boot looks like, but I did have to stretch my
car's boot to tighten the bolts. It snaps right back.
Michael Sasaki (m...@kalama.doe.hawaii.edu)
I have a 200SX. There are two bolts that you can remove from
within the car, and those permanent looking ones are actually
removed from under the car. It's not that hard to get to if you
have a long socket set and you remove the heat shield. I didn't
have the long sockets and managed w/ an adjustable wrench.
Gary W. Mahan (g...@venus.ssd.loral.com)
I did the stretchy thing; it seemeed alot easier than dismantling
the rest of the shifter mechanism.
- Aboutvibrating/noisy short shifters...
-
[Editorial note: There may be a couple of items that cause
the buzzing sounds with the shifter. Pick which ever solution
seems approrpriate for you situation.]
Searl Tate (s...@expersoft.com)
For anyone that is experiencing vibrating noises from the
shifter/housing area, I have a fix for you. It should be noted
that the original idea for this comes from someone here on the list
(I spoke to someone about this three months ago- just can't
remember who!). My method requires access to a Dremel MotoTool
with flex shaft attachment.
The sound is caused by the shifter touching the hole below the
billet housing (Stillen) and at certain RPMs will resonate (on mine
it was 3-3.5k RPM). I initially thought the sound was from the
heat shield, but after removing it, I found out otherwise.
From the bottom side of the shifter (car is on stands, wheels are
chocked, brake set, in gear, etc...) near the cat, loosen the heat
shield and move it half-way over. You might want to wait a while
for the cat to cool off! With the shield off, you have a clear
view of the bottom side of the shifter. Removing the cat is
unnecessary (unless you don't have a flex shaft).
I used the conical stone bit @ 5k RPM to easily widen the hole.
Take your time and widen one side at a time. Move the shifter from
a top gear to a bottom gear to switch sides (I.E. from 5th to 4th).
As you are working, make sure that you don't get a really tight
radius bend on the shaft (will overheat).
While you are there, you may want to add some "DynaMat" or other
similar sound deadening material to the heat shield (inner side).
This also helps reduce the road noise. Good luck!
Brian Porter (b...@NDA.COM)
The rattle is from the boot. The OEM shifter had a notch that
sandwiched the boot with the shift knob. The Stillen doesn't have
one so this thing rattles like crazy. Hold the top portion of the
boot while revving the S**T out of your car and the sound will go
away. Should be an easy fix try tape.
Gary W. Mahan (g...@venus.ssd.loral.com)
... if the noise is coming from the ball socket (as someone else
described), try putting/forcing a heavy grease into the ball socket
and then working the grease into the socket. The best results
would be obtained with the shifter out of the car so you can hove
the shifter to all extremes of travel and distribute the grease
better. I did this to my shifter before installing it and it has
never buzzed. BTW, my new shifter had a small (very small) amount
of play also.
- An evaluation of the SMC short shifter
-
Searl Tate (s...@expersoft.com)
All it really does is reduce the travel due to a new angle on the
shifter. On mine, with the urethane bushings it is also a lot
stiffer. The return-to-center is also much better. Such a simple
device that makes a big difference.
- A thorough comparison of the Stillen and Pacesetter short shifters...
-
Ronald S. Chong (r...@eecs.umich.edu)
I've had the pleasure of installing three other shifters (all
stillen). I finally got one, a Pacesetter shifter, and installed
it yesterday. In this post, I'll try to do a thorough comparison
between the two shifters (excluding cost, since that varies so
much).
- The obvious: the Pacesetter is adjustable. This comes about
because there is a threaded area in the length of the control lever
where the ball belongs. The ball itself is threaded - rather, the
hole in the hole in the center of the ball is threaded. So you
just put the ball on the lever, and thread it on to the point you
want, then tighten the buried set screw to lock it in place.
BTW, once the shifter is all installed, you cannot adjust it, which
isn't what i'd thought when I bought it. No biggie though; I can't
see a need to want to adjust it while it's installed. So, they're
like the konis: adjustable if you're willing to take it apart. ;)
Data: the stock distance from the center of the hole at
the bottom of the control lever (the end that connects to the
control arm) to center of the ball is about 2.25 inches.
Also, the stock throw from 1st to 2nd is about 5.5 inches. I
wanted a throw similar to the Stillen, which I guesstimated to
be about 3 inches (??). With a little basic algebra, I adjusted
the ball so that the center was 3 to 3.25 inches up from
center of the hole at the bottom of the control lever. The ball
was threaded up high enough so that there were no threads above
the ball. YMMV.
- It has a delrin (plastic-like) ball, so I'm _hoping_ there
won't be any buzzing as is prevelant with the Stillens, which have
a metal ball. We'll see.
- Now the following description could get confusing, but I
believe it's important. It concerns putting grease the ball, which
is necessary to prevent buzzing and to keep the shifter moving
smoothly.
First a description of the stock shifter. It's a ball and socket
design, like your hip or shoulder. You have a control lever with a
ball. Around the ball is a bushing and sleeve (or as the manual
calls it, "insulator" and "seat") which allows it to move smoothly
within the socket. Below is lousy ascii art of a side shot of the
assembly. Better yet, see page MT-9 (in my '91) of the service
manual.
D <- shift knob / / / <- control lever / ____ /___ _| [(O)] |_ <- ball inside bushing inside sleeve / inside socket / 0 <- connects to control arm
When you remove the stock shifter, this whole assembly comes out as
one piece. With the Stillen, you get an assembly that looks just
like stock so you can just drop it in. But first, you gotta grease
the ball. Since it is all one assembly, you gotta dab grease on
the small portion of the ball that is exposed through the top of
the socket then work the shifter all around to try to get the
grease distrubuted around the ball. You could spend a lot of time
doing this and never be sure how distributed it is.
With the pacesetter, all you get is a lever and ball. You read
right. You have to reuse the socket and the bushing and sleeve
from the stock assembly. Interesting: though the pacesetter is
based on the SMC design, apparently the SMC came as an full
assembly like the Stillen. As least, I'm inferring this from
Searl's comment in the FAQ about the "urethane bushings" in his SMC
stiffer than stock. This maybe be why the pacesetter is
inexpensive compared to the Stillen. (??)
So this was a great revelation to me. In all my previous
installations, I didn't realize that the stock assembly could come
apart - there was no reason to think about it since the Stillen
assembly dropped right in. But in fact, the stock socket can be
easily pressed off, releasing the bushing and sleeve. The bushing
splits into two halves!! How cool! Now you can just directly
grease up the interior of the bushing, slap it around the ball and
know that it's thoroughly greased.
If anyone has a Stillen that isn't installed, please flip it over
and see if is constructed the same way and if you can pop the
socket appart to have access to the ball. If it does, then we must
tell Stillen to include this point in their instructions. since the
most common suggestion about the installation is greasing this
ball, anything that makes it easier is a big help. If it doesn't,
then...well...jump to your own conclusions. :)
- A minor point: the stock control lever has a slight "krimp"
about a third of the way down (from the top) the control lever.
The purpose of this is to prevent the top of the shifter boot from
sliding all the way down the control lever and making it look like
a chicken leg with the knob at the top, the expose control lever,
then the boot smashed down at the bottom. :)
The pacesetter has has a brief 1/4" region threads tooled into
the shaft at about the same distance down the lever which achieves
the same purpose as the stock "krimp".
- Finally, another minor point. Removing the stock shifter and
installing the Stillen can get a little sticky because of the
ears on the control arm connection at the end of the control lever.
See point #10 of the shifter
install instructions on Jim Wright's maintenance page. The
Pacesetter doesn't have these ears so it drops right in "with the
greatest of ease."
Okay, that's it.
- Experience dealing with rusty bolt when installing the short shifter...
-
Ronald S. Chong (r...@eecs.umich.edu)
When I've done installs in the past they typically take about 1.5 -
2 hours. But mine took way too long; like five hours! This was
because my '91 has seen too much wet, snowy, salty weather. As a
result, two nuts were rusted on. :(
All went well until the time to remove the last two nuts, the ones
on the back part of the metal frame that squishs the rubber boot to
the body. Advice: if the bolts look rusty and you _really_ think
they might break, just _intentionally break them_. Just yank hard
so that they will break. That's what we should have done, but we
tried to baby them off. What happend was that once we the nuts got
down to about the last 1/4" inch of bolt thread (where the rust was
the thickest) the nut refused to turn.
Multimedia time: this is a side pic of the shifter once the leather
boot is pull outa the way to expose the rubber boot and frame below.
D <- knob | | <- front of car | <- shift lever | .__|___ / | \ <- rubber boot +--------O---------+ <- frame holding down rubber boot |="<-" stud with rusted nut o |
So we kept turning - nothing else we could do. The nut started
turning again. Then we realized that the _whole stud_ was turning!!
We were completely screwed.
We first started gnawing away at the top using my dremel tool
thinking that once the head was flattened, the stud would fall out.
Once it was chewed up a bit, we tried to use a punch and hammer to
knock the stud out the rest of the way. Nothing. So we decided to
try drilling - nothing else to do.
The problem was that we didn't know that the stud was shaped like
this:
______
\ / <- flattened top of stud="=======" <- thin 10mm nut | |------ <- frame holding down boot + +--- | | <- washer-like stupidness + +--- | |------ <- car body under frame |~~| .-_----. | | | | <- nut .______. |~~| |~~| |~~| |~~| \__/
The washer-like stupidness was _part_ of the stud! So I had to drill
through another 3/16" of metal. After doing the first stud, the
second one went quickly, but I was still pouting from doing the first.
We then hit the hardware store and picked up new metric bolts, nuts,
and washers. We found rubber grommets to use where the washer-like
stupidness used to be. That worked well.
In retrospect, we would have intentionally broken the nuts, we could
have lifted the frame and shifter out. The studs would still be
attatched to the frame that holds down the rubber bot because of the
washer-like stupidness, but at least you could easily hacksaw them
off, away from the interior of the car. A five-minute job instead of
thirty minutes.
- Has anyone tried the Z.Speed's short shifter?
-
Robert Douglas Williams (d...@csd.uwm.edu)
I purchased mine for $125 to my door. The feel seems to be a little
firm, but maybe it's necessary from preventing any misshifts. I had
it installed on a lift which took about 30 minutes. I can't compare
it to either the Stillen or the SMC because no one I know has one yet.
Otherwise, I like it.
- As far as installing a short-shifter goes, wouldn't it be
cheaper and more practical to chop off about 3 - 4 1/2"" off the
existing shift lever, re-thread it and re-install the knob? It seems
to me that this would achieve the same effect (shorter throws
requiring slightly greater effort) than the added trouble and expense
of installing a new lever.
-
Don Dale (d...@Princeton.EDU)
It'd be cheaper, but it wouldn't have the same effect. Remember that
your shift lever is exactly that, a lever, and the mechanical
advantage of a lever is a function of the lengths on both sides of the
fulcrum. The commercial short shift levers extend the length of the
lever underneath the fulcrum as well as shortening it above the
fulcrum. Both alterations shorten the throw distance. You could
shorten the throw just as much by hacking off the top of your lever,
but for the same throw length, you'd wind up with a little stubby
shifter, while the commercial product would look just a little shorter
than stock.
The SE-R FAQ
Maintained by Ronald S. Chong
(r...@umich.edu)
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