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Old 10-30-2017, 08:49 PM   #1
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There are many potential sources of slop in the 986 gearshift system. If you have a 5-speed, have you examined your "contraption"? That can be a huge contributor of "side to side slop":
excessive shifter play

This white plastic bellcrank piece is not available as a separate part from Porsche, but is included with new shift console assemblies. It's possible to blueprint the original plastic bellcrank to remove slop, but there are multiple places where it can need tweaking, and it will be some monkey business.

Function first makes a kit that includes an aluminum version of this bellcrank, but it may not be very compatible with your "aftermarket short shifter":
FUNCTION-FIRST > Shift-Right Solution

The factory shifter has a plastic "cage" that surrounds that balljoint, that rides in the slot of this bellcrank. The plastic "cage" spreads out the load from just two contact points out to fairly large, rectangular surfaces:


These are unlikely to wear, and the plastic used has very low friction (especially with a little silicone grease). A potentially major design deficiency of the aftermarket short shift, IMO, is it gets rid of this plastic load-spreading cage and substitutes a larger metal ball in place. Instead of load being transferred over broad areas, it's transferred at specific wear points where the ball makes contact with the planar surfaces.
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Last edited by jakeru; 10-30-2017 at 08:51 PM.
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Old 11-01-2017, 06:15 PM   #2
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jakeru View Post
There are many potential sources of slop in the 986 gearshift system. If you have a 5-speed, have you examined your "contraption"? That can be a huge contributor of "side to side slop":
excessive shifter play

This white plastic bellcrank piece is not available as a separate part from Porsche, but is included with new shift console assemblies. It's possible to blueprint the original plastic bellcrank to remove slop, but there are multiple places where it can need tweaking, and it will be some monkey business.

Function first makes a kit that includes an aluminum version of this bellcrank, but it may not be very compatible with your "aftermarket short shifter":
FUNCTION-FIRST > Shift-Right Solution

The factory shifter has a plastic "cage" that surrounds that balljoint, that rides in the slot of this bellcrank. The plastic "cage" spreads out the load from just two contact points out to fairly large, rectangular surfaces:


These are unlikely to wear, and the plastic used has very low friction (especially with a little silicone grease). A potentially major design deficiency of the aftermarket short shift, IMO, is it gets rid of this plastic load-spreading cage and substitutes a larger metal ball in place. Instead of load being transferred over broad areas, it's transferred at specific wear points where the ball makes contact with the planar surfaces.
Yeah, you nailed with the design flaw of the short shifter. There is a small worn in groove exactly where the ball contacts. I tried to glue a small shim from a beer can to the bottom surface, but it got torn up after a while. I think I should just save up for the Numeric racing shifter.
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