Ducman82

So after getting my Roger shifter in the mail, i decided to tackle the Coupler bushings. being that i did not want to crawl under the car on jack stands and fight, i took the car to the auto hobby shop here on base and used a lift.

The shifter never felt right, real sloppy. After reading posts here in Ren-L i decided that they needed some replacing. At some point the trans in this car has been swapped (yellow mark of death on diff cover), so the coupler pin was super easy to get out. I marked the splines on the front of the coupler and yanked the pig out.

the stock plastic bushings were not cracked, but had turned in to a gummy bear like material. i was able to pry them out with a screwdriver. then i just pressed in the new bronze bushings. I also orderd up a new rubber boot for the coupler.. that sucked to get on. i had to cut a slit in the end of it just to pry it over the coupler when i reinstalled the coupler.

after a test drive back to the house , all i can say is WOW what a difference. it shifts nice and smooth now. no more slop in finding gear.

THANKS ROGER

i will post more when i tackle the short shifter

rgs944

I found this thread in a search, can someone tell me what holds the bushings in and how are they installed? It looks like they just press in to me.

Speedtoys

rgs944

OK, send me some of that glue, in the meantime I will get under there and see if I can get everything loose. It sounds like a lot of guys have had trouble removing the coupler from the tranny. I will just hope for the best I guess.

Hilton

Heat the socket-headed grub screw with a blow torch until its hot. Then heat it more, until its *really* hot. If you find during blowtorching that you're burning the edge of the rubber boot, then suck it up, carry on, and order a new boot. It will work out much cheaper than drilling out the grub screw.

They're in with loctite red - and you need to make sure you break the loctite with heat otherwise you will strip the socket head in the screw, at which point you're in for a world of hurt.

I find I can use a 19mm wrench to keep the rubber boot pushed back so it doesn't get too burnt - wedge it up against the roof of the tunnel, and it'll free up your other hand

Lastly - you don't need to cut the boot to slip it back over - some KY or spray lube will work, as long as you only get it on the inside of the boot so you can still get a firm grip. Then a twisting/pulling motion will encourage it to slide over.

As an aside - the factory bushing-only part no. (911 424 223 03) measured 1mm thicker than the stock ones I removed. So they'll take out the slop nicely too.

rgs944

Thank you Hilton, I will need to wait untill Mon. to get some gas for my torch. When I get it out(maybe if), how do you change the bushings, mine are almost completly gone. I assume the round bushing pin needs to be pressed out? Is that right?

rgs944

After doing more searchig I learned that it might be possible to push the pin out while the housing is still connected to the trans. Has anyone done this that can tell me how it worked. I wonder about the possibility of getting a 'porta power' up there and using that as a press.

Hilton

I'd be wary of pressing the pin out with the coupler on the car. You need to adequately support the coupler's frame - its alloy, not steel, and possible to crack the frame which requires a whole new coupler (BTDT - on a press).

The second one of these I did was more successful, after cooking the grub screw and getting the coupler off, I heated the splined shaft and sprayed the pin with a good penetrating lubricant and pressed it out using a deep socket to support the frame with no drama. For installation, I stuck the pin in the freezer and heated the splined shaft - I was able to push the pin almost all the way home using finger force, I used the press for the last centimeter or so.

rgs944

After researching this I am now leaning towards finding a way to install bushings from the outside and figuring out a system to secure them. Hilton you have me gunshy on trying to remove the bushing pin while in the car. Thank you for most likely saving me a lot of extra work. I understand someone sells collarless bushings so I will be ordering those on Mon. For a sucurement system I am thinking of somekind of plastic bolts, one on the bottom and one on the top connected by straps on each side. Hopefully if I ever need to tackle the grub screw it will be with the tranny out. Since I do not put a lot of miles on my cars anyway, hopefully I will never need to take the transaxle out.

rgs944

Here is an ending to an ealier thread that faced this same issue, here is what this guy concluded after doing the project: For some reason I can not figure out how to post the entire thread link.



"Mission accomplished!

With a variety of bits, starting with a 1/8" cobalt bit, and some Mobil 1 for cutting oil, and a right angle drill, and a right-angle Dremel adapter, and a 1/8" diamond bit/burr, I managed to drill a new socket for the grub screw. After that, things went relatively easily.

So, now she's back together, with a proper grub screw, Loctited in place, and a new boot. Unlike a number of people here, the boot didn't give me any trouble. I didn't have to slice it or grease it... other than a bit of elbow grease. The one point I can recommend on the boot is that, for the narrow end (at the transmission) you can fold over the lip of the boot to the outside before you slide it over the selector shaft, then flip that fold back over and it will go right onto the lip at the tranny.

So, was it worth it? I think so. The bronze bushings didn't do much for the front/back play of the shifter (I guess I'll have to see if the shifter cup helps for that), but they do provide a crisper feel and definitely eliminated any side-to-side play. Having this all torn apart also gave me the opportunity to recenter the shifter a bit, so it no-longer pulls the shift boot off of the shifter frame when pulling hard into 1st.

For reassembling the shifter, I used some thin steel wire to hold the springs compressed after compressing them in a vise, however, I still needed to use some needle nose Vise Grips to compress the assembly fully so I'd have enough room to get the shims and clips in place. I would recommend one or two larger pairs of needle nose Vise Grips as being extremely helpful in this task.

As a recap, though, if you are planning to install bronze shift coupler bushings, don't remove the shift coupler. Just take a medium-large flat head screwdriver and use it to break the inner lips off of the stock plastic bushings. You should then be able to pop the old bushings out with the shift coupler on the car. You might need to screw some wood or sheet metal screws into the old bushings to provide a grip to better pull them out, but, even if you spend an hour (or two) getting the plastic bushings out, it is well worth it, IMO, compared to trying to get that grub screw out. Once the plastic bushings are out, the bronze ones can be pressed in from the outside using a 4" C-clamp.

SeanR

I installed a set of the new Derlin? bushings that Rog had made for these. Now they are fantastic.

Landseer

Getting the shift coupler off the car isn't always that difficult.

Like any allen headed screw, if its undamaged and cleaned so it can accept maximum allen wrench depth, you are in a good starting place. Key is getting a real good bite on the allen, and choosing the right configuration of allen wrench / maybe with a helper lever, to be able to get leverage on it. Most I've done will break loose with a snap.

Some heat as Hilton described wont hurt and will help if loctite was used.