Short shifter binding

[Qmulus]

You might check the bearing on the main shifter shaft. That bearing rides on a zinc plated machined steel cross bolt that was made for the shifter. On my shifter the plating was coming off and fouling the bearing, making it feel rough. It was only really noticeable when installed and the bearing loaded when shifting. That cross bolt shaft _should_ be precision ground hardened tool steel or maybe stainless (the specs are easy to find from bearing manufacturer spec sheets). I took off the remaining zinc and replaced the bearing (HK1014). As it is, the shaft is a bit undersized, so there is a bit of slop there that shouldn't be, but it is much smoother now. The bolt could perhaps be saved by chrome plating, but that is more that I will bother to do.

If you wonder what the differences are between the B&M shifters and the $65 ebay knock-offs that these start out as, that is one of them.

Personally, I thought the shifter was a bit too short and the effort a bit too much, so I replaced mine with a 997 shifter. To me at least, that seems like a good compromise between the short shifter and the original 986/996 shifter.