Short shifter binding

[Pdwight]

I installed one of the short shifter kits, all metal with ball bearings a couple months ago.....while it is much more definite it binds at times. I have read about removing some green plastic to keep the ends from dragging but ??

I took my console off today to see and AI cannot find anything like this that might be binding the cable ends ...anyone else seen this ??

Thanks
Dwight

[Gelbster]

Dwight -was it a Numeric? I ask because there is a diy ball bearing shifter offered by "Ben". His thread contained some details of adjusting and tweaking to achieve perfection in shifting.Numeric don't seem to offer much advice on this ?

[sickbananas]

I am interested to know if you manage to fix this problem, mine also sticks at times, not really sure how to explain it. I'm going to read Ben's thread to see that gives me any answers .

[Pdwight]

It is Ben's shifter

[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.

[Ben006]

Hi.

Pdwight, can you make a video of what the shifter is doing ?
Does it have play, grinding noise, or you just feel some "steps" ?

Thank you.

Ben

[Pdwight]

No grinding at all, it just feels like it's binding at times during the shifting. How tight did you guys get the bearings on each end of the shifter during instalation?

[Pdwight]

I put some play back into the end bearings...not much just a tiny amount. I then used three 1/4 inch washers on the front two studs and 1 washer each on the back two studs of the mounting bolts for the shifter. This gave a slightly front up a tiny bit and moved the cables a bit further away from the "hump"

I took her out tonight and the shifting was much better than before

[bwillia080261]

My Schnell short shift kit does this also, particularly going into third when the tranny is cold. Seems to go away after a few miles of warm up though.

[Gelbster]

The cold-related problem suggests it is a gearbox lubricant issue, not a shifter problem?

[Pdwight]

Did not do it with the original OEM shifter...gear box oil was changed in May of this year