After swapping the engine and tranny out for a spare set, I have a minor issue with shifter position. I took the linkages off the old tranny and moved them over since it was a short shifter setup. It went together well enough, but now the shifter feels “off”, it’s about 2" further forward while in the neutral position. It still shifts well enough, but I need to know if I can correct this issue, or if it’s just a year to year difference in the transmission. The tranny that WAS in the car was an '87, the one that went in IS an '89. What did I do wrong???
Shifter position
King_Tut
#2
Did you put the bend in the shifter the right way? It will work both ways, but you might have put the bend towards the front instead of towards the back.
The bend in the shifter is the same as before. I couldn’t get the shift knob to budge, so I left it where it was.
jlevie
#4
If you moved the entire shifter over and didn’t get the shift lever turned the wrong way, the neutral position of the shifter should be as it was. It sounds to me like the shift lever is turned the wrong way, which would move the lever forward.
This is in fact what happened. I asked my buddy who helped me over the weekend if he filddled with it. To which he replied that he removed the pin in the B&M shifter and rotated the shift knob a bunch to try and remove it from the lower half. He’s pretty sure he left it 180 degrees from where it should be. 5 minutes under the car tonight should take care of it.
djs325
#6
Yep, you’ll only ever make this mistake ONCE. Feels wiered when 1st 3rd and 5th are underneath the heater controls!
King_Tut
#7
I actually made it twice when installing a short shifter on my E46 M3. Sometimes it is really hard to tell which way the bend should go until everything it buttoned up, haha.