jeremymilo

1986.5 Porsche 928 5-speed with 150k miles

Hi, I have a short throw shifter on my 928 and I know this typically creates a somewhat stiffer, notchier shifting experience. But putting the shifter left of "the H" to reach 1st gear and Reverse requires a pretty good shove to the left, past what feels like some kind of gate. Once I'm there, getting into 1st or Reverse is easy and the transmission itself seems fine.

Is this normal? If not, any ideas?

Thanks!
Jeremy

AirtekHVAC

Front ball cup? Rear shift linkage bushings? Those are my 2 guesses.

Don Carter

Easy fix, get under the car and loosen the shaft clamp on the rear shift coupler. Have someone sitting in the car when you do it, and after loosening, have them move the shifter about 1/2" to the right, and tighten the clamp.

Lizard928

First off which short shifter do you have?

Next are the rear bushings new?

There is a spring which is made to help keep you out of 1/R which does require a little effort to push past.

Don Carter

Colin, Good point, worn out bushings could be the issue. The adjustment I recommended, is assuming good bushings. I have your shifter and have had to make this adjustment twice. The last time I tried to tighten the clamp more and so far it's working well.

jeremymilo

The short throw shifter was installed in 2007 by the PO. The car has 15k miles since then. I don't know what version of the short shifter he used, or if the bushings were replaced at that time.

Sounds like replacing the bushings and springs is the right place to start. Is this the right parts list?
--Front ball cup bushing (or the 928 Motorsports precision ball cup replacement)
--2 rear shift coupling bushings
--4 shift lever bushings
--What replacement spring(s) are needed?
--Anything else?

Lizard928

No springs will need to be replaced.

Do not bother with the 928 motorsports ball cup bushing, unless you are dropping the TT to replace.

Replace the front ball cup bushing, and the two bushings in the rear of the car.

mark kibort

probably the adjustment of the coupler at the transmission. easy fix. takes two people .
the ball cup either works or it doesn't. not really a shift factor, but it can make the forward or rear throw, seem longer if there is play ...... otherwise its not usually an issue.

jeremymilo

Alright, thanks guys. I'm going to adjust the coupler at the transmission and replace the bushings for good measure while I'm in there.

Carl Fausett

Jeremy,

Consider looking at your motor mounts at the same time. The shifter ball cup is much easier to service while the motor mounts are out. You can lower the motor a bit and get a lot more room.

Makes installing our precision shifter ball cup easier.

jeremymilo

Well, I pulled off the shifter **** and inspected what I could see without further disassembly. The short shift lever bushings seem fine. And there's not any unexpected play coming from the front ball cup, so that bushing seems fine, too.

To recap, my problem is stiffness pushing the shifter to the left of "the H" towards 1st gear and Reverse. In other words, the problem is stiffness engaging the 1st/Reverse shift fork rod by twisting the shifter linkage. But once I have the 1st/Reverse rod engaged, actually getting into 1st or Reverse is totally fine.

Is engaging with the 1st/Reverse shift fork rod using less force something that's likely achievable by replacing the rear shift coupling or its bushings? I don't see how that would help here, but I'd love to be wrong and not actually have a transaxle problem.

GregBBRD

The spring that makes it more difficult to shift into reverse and 1st gear is inside the transmission. This spring doesn't get stiffer with age, it just breaks, so it is doubtfully a spring failure issue.

There is an adjustment for the spring tension on the outside of the transmission (and people adjust the pressure too high, which can break the spring), but this adjustment also affects play in the internal shift mechanism, so I'd not suggest playing with this, initially.

Either the front or rear bushing play could be the issued...this is easy to determine, from the driver's seat. put the transmission into 3rd gear. Move the shift lever back and forth and side to side. Any "slop" (movement without any resistance) will be from one of the bushings failing.

Another thing to consider: Some of the short shifting mechanisms are "silly short" and thus require a tremendous amount of force to overcome the internal spring. They would never actually work in any kind of a race car...not nearly enough travel (feel) to be functional. You might be unfortunate and just have a shifter better suited for a Go Kart.

mark kibort

Greg with the 6 liter had the same type of issue, but it was due to the shifter being offset to the left side too much. Do you think that its hitting the left side and you have to force it against the console stuff, to get it to engage the 1st R , shift rod? if you can take a video of the what it looks like or a picture of what it looks like in 1st and Reverse, I can tell you if that's the problem. Also, a quick check would be that 2nd gear as looked at by sitting in the driver seat, should be right at the clock.

if the spring is too tight, that's an easy adjustment on the side of the transmission. hard to believe that is that much out of adjustment.

Don Carter

The adjustment I described above is an easy next step. If your rear bushings are bad, you'll be able to see that when you get under the car to make the adjustment, if not, the adjustment alone might fix your problem.

jeremymilo

I know the shifter itself isn't contacting/catching on anything, because it had the same feel when I pulled off the shifter **** and boot, and played with the bare shifter with plenty of clearance.

Anyway, I'll replace the bushings later this week and see where that gets me.