Where to get white piece in the shifter?

[martsink]

Hey Guys,

Just wondering if its possible to this piece from Porsche or aftermarket. I'm starting to get some slop in the shifter.

[Gelbster]

Have you read Ben's shifter thread? That may give you some iseas?
There is a Youtube for the 996 shifter(same)showing a mod to that piece using shim stock.

[jakeru]

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.

[martsink]

Originally Posted by jakeru

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.

[jakeru]

I wouldn't recommend doing the metal shimming on any shifter. Instead, if you have a heat gun, simply use some heat with a bit of dimensional restraint, to re-form this thermoplastic part until it arrives at the desired clearances.





It's so much easier, and more reliable than using a metal shim, (which in my experience, even on the stock-style shifter, was very difficult to install, very likely to come out, and in the very slim chance it stays put, could be prone to having longer-term lubrication/wear issues.)

Removing the plastic piece may be safest approach, I found it's possible to reform the dimensions of this bellcrank without full shift console disassembly (it's not a bad idea to use foil to block heat getting to areas you don't want to heat up too much, and warp). You can remove the pivot pin, you can get it up where you can flow some hot air to it. I used vice-grips (lightly clamped on outside before applying heat) to restrain expansion motion, and found upon cooling/contraction, it very nicely tightened up the clearances. I used the least amount of heat to get it to reform. I did this a while ago on two shift consoles (one spare/experiment, one I'm currently using), and I saved the attached pictures...


With the grooves already worn into your existing plastic bellcrank, you basically have this piece already "broken in" to your aftermarket short shifter ball, and you might even find after a repair, it lasts longer than it did before.

Definitely put in a generous amount of plastic-compatible grease in there, to try and give it a fighting chance of lasting longer with your aftermarket short-shifter. I'd avoid a conventional oil-based grease, due to risk of it attacking over time the plastic material. DuPont Krytox is good, silicone grease is fine and likely what the factory used on their plastic shift consoles.

Or you could go back to one of the stock-style shifters, but even those will also benefit from being "tightened up" on clearance reduction from this heat gun trick! I think they are made with an excessive amount of clearance on this area (why they are made that way, I have no idea!) so even a brand new one will benefit some from this blueprinting "trick."

Hope it helps... best of luck!

[Gelbster]

Impressive . Would make a great diy video !