Reducing play in gearshift mechanism

[Marc_986]

I have my G87/21 gearbox ready to install along with a shifter from a 987. It will go into my 986.

Shifter and box are now connected together outside the car and the combination feels a whole lot better than the 986 shifter and G86/00 coming out of the car. There was a lot of play on the shifter and possibly even more on the box. Not only the mechanism on the gearbox, also inside.

But even though it feels much improved, it doesn't feel as good as my high mileage BMW diesel gearbox (which really is a pleasure to shift). So I want to get even closer to that.

With all out of the car it is much easier to see what happens. Some main observations;
- The fork actuation (forward / back) is made to have play, on purpose. There are 4 rubber pins between the gearbox shaft and the lever where the cable attaches. It moves quite a lot.
- The fork selection (left / right) has quite a bit of play / movement due to the rubber connection between shaft and ball.
- There is a lever to rotate cable movement to shaft movement. This has a bit of play as well, mostly up and down.
- The weight wheel (or what the steel wheel on the gearbox is called) has play on its own access as well as a little play on the shaft.

I think the top two points are the main contributors and can easily be fixed. I plan to make a new shaft with steel cups on the balls. Easy and cheap and worth a try to see whether it reduces side to side movement. Forward/ back I'd like to improve by replacing the rubber pins with steel ones.

Two questions remain;

- What have others done (racers for instance?)

- Why did porsche design in so much movement? If we remove it, does it really become uncomfortable ?(I don't notice that in the BMW). Already the G87 gearbox itself should prevent feedback / wobble of the shift fork to the shaft.

Any input well appreciated.