Meenrod

I have quite a pronounced front to back sloppiness in my gear stick, whether in gear or not. Accompanied by a 'clicking' sound. There is no movement or looseness particularly from side to side. See video here:


Anyone know what is causing this?

Mr.Woolery

My guess would be a worn bushing in the shift rod

BobbyT

Could be worn bushings in the shift linkage. To inspect them, get the car safely up in the air, remove the center tunnel cover plate under the car, and check the parts at this link. Scroll down one page, select your model/year, and drill down to main group 7, sub group 01, illustration 701-00. The suspect part is shown as item #15, "guide tube". It has a replaceable ball cup in each end, one which snaps onto the ball at the lower end of the shift lever, and the other snaps onto the ball on the "bearing plate", shown as item #24. If these are worn, you can replace just the ball cup bushings, part # 928-116-145-03, two required. Pull the old bushings out with a hook tool, and be sure to press the new ones all the way in. A large Channel-Lock pliers works well to snap the guide tube ends back onto the *****. When you are done, install a zip tie or wire around front of guide tube as a safety, to keep it from dropping if the bushing fails.

https://www.porsche.com/usa/accessor...originalparts/

If you want to dig further into this, there are four "plain bearings", part #999 924 002 40, shown as item #6 that may be worn as well. They are located in the shift tower itself.

pp000830

Is this a new issue or has it always been this way?
Some play is normal. If you find it makes shifting difficult one or more of the plastic parts in the shift linkage may need to be replaced.
Andy

Meenrod

Thank you. It is becoming worse- noticed it last few weeks. Is the guide tube the same piece as the aftermarket 'golden rod'?

BobbyT

No. The "golden rod" replaces the original "gear shift rod", item #29 in the diagram.

samurai_k

Before you jack stand your car you can actually do a quick inspection from the top by removing the shift **** and the rubber boot. From there you could get an idea where the problem is. The shifter is a simple design where there is the stick (lever) that slides on a tube (guide tube) and then moves a rod attached to the transmission (Golden rod is the FDM name for it) and then a support for the lever so you can adjust the position of the lever forward or back (forward rod?).

If you are seeing sloppiness and the shifting linkages is the source it's either the guide tube loose, forward rod loose, shifter loose on the guide tube, or shift rod loose. They can get loose either by the bushings failing, guide tube not right, or the attachment points of the rods to the subframe, shifter, or transmission.

When you look down from the top with the boots removed you can quickly isolate.

If you go to the FD Motorsports site they have a great instructions and pictures on their RS shifter and golden rod products. The pictures will show you what I described above visually.

Good luck!

deekay911

Fix this soon, if the front plastic bushing disintegrates, the rod can drop and leave you without gears. Ask me how I know....

pp000830

Seems like more work to take apart stuff to look from above than to remove the underbody cover from below. Besides whatever the fix is it will involve working from below. Am I missing something here? The plastic parts are so inexpensive I would just buy them all and just replace them.
Andy

Meenrod

I've ordered the FDM short shift kit (which does away with some of the cups and bushings) the FDM golden rod and the 4 remaining nylon bushes. That should take care of it. Thanks for the advice.

samurai_k

Cool! It's a great upgrade. You can knock it out in a couple of hours. I have some pics of the proceedure when I did it last fall in my wrench log.

MielsOnWheels

Meenrod

Good to know thanks. The 1-2 shift is not great at the moment. I'd actually considered a regear as I thought that was the issue- I kept reading about people complaining about the 2-3 transition so couldn't understand why they didn't mention 1-2. Maybe the stiffer engine mounts will help.

Paolo1

Could you please share the threads you found helpful about the 2-3 transition? Many thanks

Meenrod

Well, you were so right!

I got the FDM short shift kit and Golden Rod and managed to jack the car up today and get under it. I took off the access panel and could see the rubber boot surrounding the gear stick to forward guide rod and rear linkage rod... I literally barely touched it and the whole thing fell apart in a cloud of fine 'sand' or powder. The cup had completely disintegrated some time ago by the looks of it and my linkage had been held together by only the rubber boot! I can't imagine how close I was to losing the ability to change gear at any moment while I'd been driving. Could have been a dangerous moment.



Plastic cup completely disintegrated into powder leaving metal on metal with a huge amount of slop in the feel.