short shifters

[93_f22aky]

where o where can i get one ?

[samrjr0044]

Look for yeamans. He sell them on here. Me and my brother just sent him some. I think he has one left.

[deevergote]

It's just a bracket welded on... you can make your own bolt-on bracket for about $3 at home depot. Check the DIY section for instructions.


Be advised that a short shifter will do two things... 1) it'll make your shifting notchy. 2) it'll cause your shifter to smack the side of your console going into 5th.

It'll also rip your shift boot in time.




Pspec and 4bidden both make shifters... Pspec discontinued the CB7 shifter, and 4bidden only makes Prelude shifters (which we can use, but it takes some creativity to make it work) Those are the only "real" short shifters you can get. Aside from being totally new pieces, not just a stock shifter with a new bracket welded on, they're still relatively the same thing... just a lever that moves the cable mounting point.

[johnl]

If the shifter or cable rod hits the aperture in the console, then the whole shifter and the subframe to which the shifter is attached can be moved backward to improve clearance.

Remove the four sets of rubber bushes and crush tubes where the subframe bolts to the chassis, and use shorter bolts and large washers to attach the subframe to the tunnel. You need large washers because the four attachment bolt holes in the subframe are much larger than the bolts that fit through them, so with the rubber bushes and crush tubes removed you can use this larger hole size to move the subframe backward.

You can even elongate the holes to move the subframe even farther back (may require some removal of metal on the rear of the subframe to clear the handbrake mechanism). Removing the rubber bushes also lowers the subframe a cm or so (a bit more), which also helps with clearance for the shifter / cable rod / console aperture.

Also, you can to some degree bend the cable rod down ward to improve clearance, but be careful not to bend it where the cable length adjusting threads are (some CB7 shifter cables have this adjustment but others seem not to), because bending at the rod thread creates a stress point in the threaded section and the rod may break at the thread (sometime later when you're a long way from home, as I found out!). Bending the non threaded section is OK, but the more you bend it the more risk you might run of breaking something.

Replacing the rubber bushes at each end of the fore / aft shifter cable with metal bushes also improves shifter feel significantly, enabling you to feel the dog gears engage and disengage and making the shift feel more precise. The lever feels like it's attached to something metal, instead of something vague and rubbery...

Ideally you'd use spherical rod ends at each end of this cable to allow for angular changes that occur between the cable rods (at each end of the cable) and the pins to which they are fitted, as this angular change can cause stiffening of the shifting action (i.e. partial binding).

The OE rubber bushes allow this angular displacement to occur, but since the rubber needs to be flexed to do so they do create some feeling of 'rubbery binding' that is more evident if you've lengthened the vertical lever on the left side of the shifter (which 'short shifts' the shifting action in the lateral plane).

However, fitting rod ends would be difficult, but alternatively if you drill the new metal bush(es) to just very slightly larger than the pins that pass through them, and then file the holes so the holes have a taper on each side of the smallest bush ID, then enough 'tilting' motion between the bushes and pins can be achieved to accomodate the angular changes between the cable rods and pins (at each end of the cable). This further frees up the shifting action.

Partial binding of the cable end (with angular displacement) is more of a problem at the gearbox end of the cable than at the shift lever end, because the distance from the box lever to the end of the cable sheath is shorter than the distance from the cable sheath to the shift lever.

There you go, more than you ever really wanted to know!

[93_f22aky]

wow seams like it is not worth all the trouble thanx thow i was in someones car with one i thought it was cool how lil he had to move his shifter.

[johnl]

wow seams like it is not worth all the trouble thanx thow i was in someones car with one i thought it was cool how lil he had to move his shifter.

Sorry, didn't mean to put you off the idea!

My short shifter is a home modified stock shifter that's probably a bit more extreme than the commercial ones I've seen. It short shifts in both planes (fore / aft as well as lateral lever motion) despite the lever being lengthened about 6 or 7cm to bring the knob closer to the wheel. The lever is also tilted over at an angle so it's closer.

It was quite a lot of messing around to raise the cable to lever attachment height on the for / aft cable enough to substantially reduce the stock throw while still having the lengthened lever (longer lever means longer throw with no other mods, so to still reduce throw the cable needs to be raised a fair bit). Clearance to the console aperture is the biggest problem.

It's now a matter of just dropping the hand a quite short distance from wheel to lever and click / click to change gear, and yes it's very nice!

[deevergote]

Do you have any pictures of your shifter, John? I want to see what this thing looks like!

Fushigi, the "company" that "made" my shifter (also modified stock) had a plan to make a longer shifter much like the one you just described. It always sounded like a cool idea, but they disappeared shortly after mentioning it to me.


Hitting the side of the console has always been my issue with short shifters.

[Smiley_cb7]

Sorry, didn't mean to put you off the idea!

My short shifter is a home modified stock shifter that's probably a bit more extreme than the commercial ones I've seen. It short shifts in both planes (fore / aft as well as lateral lever motion) despite the lever being lengthened about 6 or 7cm to bring the knob closer to the wheel. The lever is also tilted over at an angle so it's closer.

Sounds like a mustang shifter. Love those!

[johnl]

Sorry, no pics unless I tear the car apart, and then I'd have to figure out how to post them onto the site, and I'm too lazy!

To shorten the lateral throw you need to dismantle the shifter completely, then cut the left side vertical lever (the short one) and weld in an extension to make the lever longer. To raise the cable attachment point for the for / aft cable to the shift lever, I've welded a vertical tab onto the front of the lever and drilled it so that the cable can be attched with a bolt running through a metal bush (bronze, made from an old valve guide). The welded on tab now has several holes in it, the result of experiments with relocating the attachment point. The original pin to which the cable used to attach is still there, unused.

I've actually ditched the cable fitting that holds the large soft rubber bush (it's large size was causing interference problems with the console aperture), and made a steel replacement that is drilled to fit onto the new metal bush, but is much smaller than the OE fitting that houses the stock rubber bush, because the fitting now doesn't need to house the relatively large OD rubber bush.

Almost everything else you do other than raise attachment points or lengthen levers is to do with clearance of the console aperture, and you do whatever it takes to get a little bit here and a little bit there, for instance you can carefully remove a bit of metal in the rectangular metal hoop that holds the shift boot in place (underneath the console aperture), you can bend the cable rod, you can lower the subframe (and thus the shifter) by deleting the rubber bushes, you can move the subframe (and shifter) backward. All these things are 'by hook and by crook', whatever you can do to gain small amounts of extra clearance.

The shift lever extension is simply an aluminium bar (about 25mm OD from memory) drilled at one end to fit a bolt (shank and thread with head cut off) for the shift knob to screw onto (the hole in the ally bar is slightly undersize to the bolt shank, and the bolt shank hammered in for an interfernece fit), and drilled and tapped at the other end to fit the thread on the shift lever.

When you raise the cable to lever attachment substantially, you may need to adjust the angle of the cable where it attaches at the forward end of the subframe, by carefully bending the tabs that hold the cable sheath in place.

It would all be a lot simpler if you simply ditched the console, exposing the rather trick looking shifter mechanism for the world to see. This might be the go for a racer, but maybe not so much for a DD, and I'm sure my wife would have objected!

[deevergote]

Yeah, I was going with no console for a while... I was constantly messing with the shifter, so it was just easier to leave it off. It looks a bit... incomplete.

[gloryaccordy]

Yeah, I was going with no console for a while... I was constantly messing with the shifter, so it was just easier to leave it off. It looks a bit... incomplete.

When sparkle's shifter cables shit the bed I was doing the same thing

I don't see the advantage of a short shifter in a CB though

It puts it too far from your hand, making it not too short at all in a non-drag racing capacity

[The G-Man]

I like the notchyness of the short throw adapter. I was driving a mini a couple of weeks ago and the shifts felt sloppy.

Of course when I have this thing (pictured below) pretty much all the notchyness goes away.


I am currently not running the extension right now because I would like to custom make my own bracket to locate the cable even higher on the shifter in conjunction with dropping the shifter bucket underneath the plate to allow for console clearance.

[gloryaccordy]

G-Man's got the right idea

Though it does look a bit... "Strange"

[deevergote]

I hope you hide that extension very well when you remove it... it looks quite... phallic.

[johnl]

I don't see the advantage of a short shifter in a CB though

It puts it too far from your hand, making it not too short at all in a non-drag racing capacity

I suspect you might be confusing a 'short shifter' with a shift lever that's been shortened. Not the same thing. A short shifter reduces shifter throw with no change in lever length, by altering the leverage ratio of the shifter mechanism.

This is aceived by raising the point at which the fore / aft cable attaches to the lever (which shortens the longitidinal throw), and (in some cases, probably only custom modded) by lengthening the vertical lever attached to the lateral throw cable (i.e. the left side one), which shortend lateral throw.

The advantage is that it feels nicer, i.e. more direct and 'sporty'.