Shifter Slop

[glennhuff]

Has anyone else tried to take the play out of their shifter? The forward and back motion in mine is OK, but the side to side play is horrible. I traced it all the way back to the tranny internals. I pulled the tailshaft housing, and it seems that the play is in the fork on the end of the shift rail. Has anyone replaced this piece? It looks like it's just held on with a roll pin. Maybe it can be welded up.. Any ideas?

[DatsunBucky]

Has anyone else tried to take the play out of their shifter?Any ideas?

I think I've traced the slop in my shifter to play between the fork that attaches to the rod going into the tranny and the piece that rides inside the forked piece (sorry for all the technical terms). I can move the shifter sideways quite a ways before the rod into the trans moves at all. (Shifter in right side of 1-2 overlaps left side of 3-4.) When I get around to it I'm going to try shimming the outer "fork" with washers to see if that helps. <shrug>

[mgslayer]

Is your shifter just easy to move side to side, or do you feel that it moves too far side to side? If it's just easy, check the 2 pins that are under the shifter that put it in the center position. There are 2 bolts on the bottom side of the transmission that hold the pins and springs in place. The bolts are about 2" further back than where the speedo cable goes into the transmission. Down side is it looks next to impossible to get to with the transmssion in place, but since yours is out..... If the springs are shot/worn that could create the additional slop since the pins are not popping back up all the way. When I got my 2000, the PO had put 2 bolts in there with very "loose" springs, and no O-Rings. When I replaced the clutch I tried to figure where the "Mystery Drops" were coming from, and that was it. I found one of the original pieces in a bag of misc. transmission parts. My father machined me some new pieces of various lengths, put in a stiff spring from the local hardware store we cut to size and it made a world of difference. The shifter still travels the same amount of distance left to right of center, but there is a definate "feel" to it now. Hindsight being 20-20, I should have checked them on the transmission I put in when I did the motor swap. Hope this helps.

Happy Wrenching
Mark