I got mine installed yesterday. (2000 S with 113,000 miles)
Previous to this I had a lot of trouble getting it into reverse unless the car was really warmed up, to the point where when I parked I would put it into reverse, and always park in such a way that that I would not have to engage reverse unless I could park with it already in reverse. Plus it just felt "sloppy" and I had trouble sometimes binding up on the way from 2 to 3. (Note: I realize that if there was legitimate transmission problems that a shifter change would not fix them)
Taking everything apart... Fun times. After I had the console out, I went ahead and took out the lower center cubbies (the piece that gets removed in a GT3 console delete) because it was really hard to maneuver the center console out around that which made it easier to put the center console back in.
I marked the shifter cables with a sharpie before taking out the old shifter, and once I took it out this is what I found:
I believe the cables were set in such a way, combined with the slop due to wear, that the side of this connector was rubbing against the side of the shifter and peeling off. The more it peeled, the more it would bind up. The ball was still in there relatively tight but it popped out with not too much force.
I put the new shifter in, clipped on the tool that sets the neutral position, and tried to put the cables back in (I was curious to see if it would line up with the previous locations.) They did not, the forward/backward one was pretty close, but the left/right was so far off that the cable would not even connect to the clip.
The red lines show the end of the clip, and the end of the connecting piece on the cable. It could not be reassembled in this configuration.
What I ended up with is the left/right cable end at the maximum end of adjustment, and the other cable pretty close to the line. It works well, does not rub, and is waaaay better than before. I took it out on a test drive to verify after a few iterations of shifting in the driveway and adjusting the cables.
In this picture the red lines mark the end of the connector piece so you can see how it related to the cable marking from the previous configuration.
I got everything all buttoned up, and it was a little tougher than I thought to get the screws lined up on the center connector. Today I went to take my son for a ride, and when he went to put his seatbelt on... the fastener end was missing...
It was under the edge of the center console (where the outline is marked) .... DOH! I had to take of all the screws for the console except the front one and was able to slip it out from under there... That solved the mystery of why I had a hard time getting the screws to line up when I put it back together yesterday.
I am really liking the new shifter so far, and I don't feel like I am about to break something every time I go into reverse...
Steve
The Car with No Name
Black Croc
Linear Mode
