excessive shifter play
 

i installed a 997 shifter this weekend and locked the cables in the same position they were on with the previous shifter.

there seems to be an excessive amount of play in the cables although it shifts perfectly. is this normal or am i tripping?

see this video to understand what i'm talking about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySyCS2FUkl4

is there a way to adjust the cables to eliminate that play or is it normal with a shifter that doesnt sit on top of the transmission?

thanks,

Cristian

If someone else doesn't chime in I'll check my 997 shifter tomorrow and let you know. Perhaps you're just paying way more attention to the shifter now that you've put a new one in? Assuming you put the cables exactly where they were before, it should be functioning the same as your old one did, albeit with a small reduction in throw.

There was play before, maybe not as much but i am just curious if this is normal or too much and if there is a way to improve it. at the moment i am pretty happy with everything on the car but this shifter just lets it down a bit..

In the video the cables were moving underneath in conjunction with the shift lever moving. I would consider it play if you could move the shift lever with no corresponding movement in the cable ends underneath. Probably normal. Was your transmission cold or warmed up from driving when you made the video? If cold I would be surprised to see wiggling like that, but with it warmed up, I would not be surprised.

I can check mine cold this evening, I have that same shifter in there now.

I felt the same way about the stock shifter. Way too long and ropey. Worse than my mini and total crap if you've ever driven an s2000. For me the 997 shifter didn't transform the driving experience or anything, it just changed the shifting from something I was pretty unimpressed with to something that I could make do with.

well that's the issue.. my previous car was an S2000 :)

i am hard to impress after that experience. the S kinda ruined all other shifters for me so it's hard to accept.
but it's like finding a woman with small breasts if you're an a$$ man. you want to improve it if possible but you can live with it if nothing can be done. and the Boxster has a fine a$$ indeed! :D

Steve you have a point, but those cables moving didnt actually engage or disengage gears at all.. so what is the point of that movement exactly?

transmission was cold in that one and its the same with it warmed up.
but again.. that movement in cables you see there doesnt affect the gearbox at all, at least i think it doesnt. only when i move the lever all the way back or forth does it engage.

I have the same thing going on in my 2001 boxster base (5-speed) with about 113k miles, also noticed it after removing the center console and upgrading to the 997 shifter, and looking down at the relative motion of the shift knob to the cables, just as you are showing in your video.

I haven't poked around in the shift linkage back by the transmission yet, but suspect there is play back where the shift linkage connects to the transmission. There are surely some bushings back there which can get worn out with lots of miles. Have not been able to find replacement bushings advertised for sale separately, but if you throw lots of parts at it replacing things like the whole cable assembly, it will come with new bushings. Maybe someone else can chime in.

I did identify some sources of play in the 997 shifter which also bug me a bit, but we're talking about .004-.005" here and there (and although they do amplify to more than that at the knob, were still talking about a relative small portion of the overall play in the system). The play going on back at the shift cables to transmission seems to be by far the sloppiest link in the chain now. Now the factory 986 style shift console with 110k miles had *really* worn out plastic shift bushings, so replacing those with 997.2gt3 style aluminum bushings (and a relatively low-mile 997 console) was a really good move in the right direction for helping to tighten things up. Basically no play measured with those.

Tomorrow I'll post a video of my 997 shifter with new trans cables. That is about as tight as its going to get using stock components.

looking forward to seeing how a setup with new cables performs, maybe its something to add on the TO DO list.

Back where the cables connect to the transmission, I wonder if we should also be looking at parts 15, 17, and 18 also (as referenced in the attached picture from the Porsche 986 parts listing), as it seems like they could potentially be sources of play, especially for left-right slop at the shift knob. I found an aftermarket replacement for part 17, here.

(I also found some pictures of this overall contraption in jcslocum's post, here. )

That whole contraption that translates the linear motion of the cable in the gear changing motion has a lot of places for wear. I did all I could to make it tighter as I worked on the IMS. This pin was loose and was maybe about 30% of the overall sloppiness:

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i1...psk6a2mhve.jpg

It was moving about because the staking was now worn and not holding it. I restaked it and then threw a spot of weld on it. After dressing the weld it was immoveable.

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i1...psdmrbhf4w.jpg

The red arrows are the 4 ball/socket ends on the cable and the other linkage. This is where the rest of the wear and slop is occurring and unfortunately, are not replaceable. You need new cables which gives you new ends. I'm trying to find a way to re-crimp a heim type joint onto the ends to replace them. It's low priority as I'm still trying to get the Box on the road!!

So inspect you ends on the cables, lube them and look for a fix.

so much good info thanks guys!
tomorrow i'll have the car up on a lift and will have a look at the cables and mechanism, i'm sure i'll find a lot of play. if i have to spend a few bucks to make it better i probably will.

I figured maybe it was a "neutral zone" or something like that, but the other posts about the cable ends sound like a good possibility.

I think Numeric just finished a special offer for 987/987 cables ($50 off I think) but even with this sale they are around $450 or so, and I think a new set of the OEM cables is about that much too. I had a Miata before the Boxster and that shifter was sweet! I guess for us with the transmission in the back and all the cabling gives lots of opportunities for play outside of the shifter.

I found a video showing the looseness in the contraption. This is on our car.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iM0xLM_JwjQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Here is a video of my 997 shifter with new transmission cables.

There is still a good amount of play in the shifter. With a new shifter and new cables, this is about as good as its going to get.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9nG08qdb7Ag" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

My video has better music!!!

Now we just need to put the 2 ends together to see if that wasted movement is in the shifter or the contraption at the back.

I just checked mine, 2000S with 9x7 shifter, it was just like yours with the play/neutral zone.

i had a look at the linkage on the right side of the transmission this weekend and i have the same play in that contraption.

it really looks like it's the linkage/cables not the shifter.
when i installed the 997 shifter i followed the below video to get the shifter itself nice and tight but that play you could see in my original video clearly comes from the cables and really from the mechanism on the gearbox.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJv0wI72aRg


is there any way to adjust the cables themselves? I noticed this end of the cables, the part that sits right under the arm rest tray. is that something one can play with to get the cables tighter?


or are we doomed and just have to accept there is little improvement you can do on a shifter that's not on top of the transmission and this will always be a letdown of the Boxster?

if Thom has a new shifter and cables and there is still play (less than in mine true..) i'm not gonna throw money at it, just not worth it.

I tore into my shift linkage "contraption" yesterday. (It was easily accessible from the rear of the car after removing a heat shield). Although I didn't find the loose-fitting ball stud that jcslocum showed in his video, I did find some "racking" play in the bellcrank pivot bushing. (You can also see this play in jcslocum's video if you look closely.)

I removed the contraption from the car and disassembled it, and found an undersized bronze bushing and/or worn components in the bellcrank pivot were causing the play. (Also, I noticed that any original grease that must have been there was long gone, and all that might have once been grease there was now dry and crumbly.)

After refurbishing the bushing and regreasing it, all of its play has been removed, and it should operate well.

Another view of the "contraption" with its rubber cap removed:

So far the two ballsocket pieces I've inspected closely in this area seem to be great shape (except from being dirty and dry and in need of some grease, which I will do). The molded-in rubber vibration isolators do deflect under force, but this is by design, the rubber isn't torn or cracked, and don't look bad.

The plastic ballsocket liners although dirty and dry, seem nice and tight with no slop.

So I will clean them up, grease them with some badly needed DuPont Krytox PFPE grease, and reuse.

Please make a DIY :)

Edit: I didn't see the rest of the pictures when I posted this :)

Can't wait to hear how it works once reinstalled!

What did you do to replace the bushing?? I would like to improve this spot too.

Good work BTW !!

I have 2 cables from Woody and some heim joints on the way to see how hard it would be to replace the cable ends and eliminate some slop as well is the flex that is occurring with the plastic/rubber ends.

EDIT:

Look what showed up in the mail this morning.

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i1...psq7vigc7f.jpg

These are 6mm Stainless Steel Heim joints with bronze inserts and a grease fitting (small brass bump on the side) too keep them smooth. I can now begin the cutting and threading now that the Box is out of the shop and on it's way to live in VA with my daughter. I have pushed a new project into the shop tho, I'm addicted to cars and will always have 3-4 projects ongoing....

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i1...pse9qoitw3.jpg

My car interests know no bounds!!!

Thanks for the feedback and encouragement, guys!

I took it for a test drive and found an immediately noticeable improvement to shifting, and joy of shifting. Although still not completely perfect, it makes it noticeably more enjoyable to shift, especially on any gear change that involves lateral movement.

I'd say subjectively, this change removed 33% of the lateral movement play at the knob. Another 33% improvement I think I can remove by fixing some remaining play I still know about and haven't fixed yet in the shift console mechanism, and I think the last 33% if it could be removed at all, would be inside the transmission itself (so I will live with that, and not expect to remove that last bit.)

I've already removed quite a bit of play in the original shift console by freshening the shift console to a low-miles, 997 version with basically zero-play gt3 aluminum bushings, so this is definitely all going in the right direction. :)

I made a video showing the zero "contraption" play:
trim.27F274F5-B282-4608-8093-0279573704D5.MOV - Video - VideoSprout

I bought a couple 10mm all-metal ball socket joints, and tried sticking those on the factory ~10mm ball studs, but found them to relatively sloppy fit (perhaps with 0.005" or play or so) compared to the factory plastic ballsockets which had no noticeable play, it seemed like a step backwards. (check out the video... You can see that the tiniest movement at the shift cable is now being immediately translated through the contraption to rotational movement at the transmission input shaft.)

And also, attached is a different view I took of the contraption. This shows after being cleaned up and reassembled. There was a bit of motor oil (or perhaps tranny fluid) on the transmission input shaft and connecting bracket, which I cleaned up, and which I initially was concerned about possibly could have degraded the rubber around the ballsockets, but after inspecting them all (three of the four by removing them and cleaning them up in the process) I think they are all fine and are not contributing any play on my particular transmission.

As far as I could tell, front-back movement was being translated relatively immediately (through the single, rubber-isolated balljoint fitting) to in-out movement of at the transmission input shaft.

This is a good question, and kind of hard for me to explain, but I will try. The bronze bushing was at least somewhat malleable, having been formed into a "c"-shape, apparently during manufacturing, from flat stock. It also had one end flattened out into a thrust surface. The way it was undersized (by design or worn, who knows), it was both too large in its inner diameter, and too thin on the thrust surface.

So I tried fixing both of those issues, I think with success. First, I pressed out the bronze bushing using a socket that fit fairly tightly. Tapped it out with a hammer. Then, I basically axially compressed the bushing, carefully, in the vice. This did I think 2 things: 1. It rolled into a "mushroom" shape the thrust surface, making more thickness than it needed to be. 2. It also seemed to have compressed the walls, thereby thickening them.

After I reinstalled the "squashed" bushing (by basically pressing it back into the bore with the vice), initially the pivot shaft was a very tight fit - so tight that I think I had to press it in using the vice also - and I found when doing so, it even shaved off some bronze material on the ID near the thrust bearing end! Eventually after working it for a while, and installing it backwards (it seems to have a slight bit of taper, so this helped) the ID of the bushing wore into what I considered near-ideal tolerances. To fine-tune the thrust surface thickness, I got it very close just by using the vice to press the mushroomed thrust surface flatter (with the pivot shaft while pressing with the vice).

Eventually I managed getting the e-clip in, but was tight. A bit more thrust surface vice-press flattening, I could get the e-clip on and it was only a little bit tight. At that point, I just worked it rotationally to try to break the thrust surface in, by wearing them without any lubrication, to perfection. (The mating pieces were relatively hard stainless steel, so I wasn't worried too much about them wearing down.). Noticing where the bright spots were where the thrust surface was making contact, I did a bit of sanding (400 grit initially) on the bright spots to help the thrust surface to develop the desired flatness and dimension. I believe this operation is called 'hand scraping' a bearing. Eventually I got it such that, although gravity wouldn't move the bellcrank by itself, a very (I thought acceptably) small amount of rotational torque would, and I called it good at this point. At some point I also added grease, of course. I expect it may wear in a bit further and the small amount of friction that is there may decrease or perhaps eventually even completely go away. Luckily, it's not too much friction to impede the shifting process - it works great and the spring that returns the shift knob to the center gate easily enough overcoming all friction during 2-3 and 5-4 shift motions. (The 2-3 gate movement, if it doesn't work correctly, can easily cause a very expensive "money 2-1 shift"! So don't rush getting enough friction out of this critical system before calling it good. But at the same time, don't rush to remove the friction too quickly or you can overshoot, and have the slop back in there that you wanted eliminated.

PS - attached picture shows the heat shield which the "contraption" is behind. Two 10mm nuts removes this heat shield, and you don't even need to jack up the car to do this job. :D

Another tip I've learned is to be careful when prying off the ballsockets! Lots of force is required (when dry at least - before getting some grease in there) and if using a pry tool, it's possible to scar up the ball studs if you're not careful. Don't let a metal pry tool touch the ballstuds. And if you scar up the bearing surfaces, sand or file them smooth before reassembling.

Did you by chance make a measurement of the hole and pin?? as well as the shoulder?

You don't mention them....

Sorry; I didn't get those measurements. My battery powered calipers were out of batteries.

After driving around with the optimized "contraption" for a bit over a week now (with a couple road trips), I've got to say the increased satisfaction of shifts is still there, just like I just did the job yesterday! The wife also immediately noticed and commented on it after her first drive after I did the work - so I highly recommend other manual-transmission boxster owners who want joyful driving have this "contraption slop" tested, and consider eliminating it.

Interesting!

This is something I need to do!

The heim joints solution looks good too! Just need to protect them, they will wear quite fast if you don't :/

http://986forum.com/forums/attachmen...lay-image.jpeg

*987.1 5-speed*. After alot of unhappiness with shifter play and lack of precision, I too tracked the problem down to this selector-bracket "contraption". The ball joints were fine, so i took it apart and found the inner bushing diameter allowed too much play for the pivot shaft. My solution was to lightly grease then *wrap a small piece of aluminum foil around the pivot shaft*, this eliminated all play between the shaft and bushing. Perfect! I greased everything up with marine grease and put it back together. The selector bracket now works smoothly with no end-play or loosness.
The foil was simply cut to the length of the shaft and cut to one circumference of wrap.

I also cleaned and lubed the cable ends and selector rod ends. 4 ends all together. My shifter is back to original operating crispness and precision.

Next step is to rebuild the shifter console with the Function-First Shift Right kit. At that point the whole thing will be better than new.

Anyone looking to restore precision and crispness their 986/987 shift should start with this bracket first.
Porsche sell an update bracket for over $350. I just updated mine for free.

Before you go and spend$300 on that kit, look at the short shift kits on Amazon. They don't include the new horizontal actuator arm, but the kits are surprisingly high quality and make an unbelievable difference in shifter feel. Buy one labeled prime and just return it off your not happy with it.

Sent from my POCOPHONE F1 using Tapatalk

So, bumping this because I have the same issue well documented already here. I swapped for a short shifter but it didn’t make much of any difference—it seems that most of the side to side slop in my 987 is courtesy of racking movement at the linkage pivot shaft as discussed by jakeru and watsongrg.

I tried the aluminum foil trick and it didn’t do that much for me. I think I’m going to try thicker stainless shim stock and see if that makes a difference, or pressing out the bearing.