Broken 911 sc shift lever
 

Recently on a road trip my 1980 911 sc became harder to shift into 5th until finally the shift lever actually swiveled to the right while tying to shift to 5th. I was not able to shift to 5th after this and reverse was very tricky to find. The lever could be rotated at will.
Upon my return and inspection and teardown the upper part of the shift lever was able to be pulled right out of the gear shift housing with the lower part still attached with the shifter pivot pin in the shifter mechanism. The two teeth on the Lock pawl plate were bent but everything else looks good. Should I replace everything in the Shifter housing or just shift lever and lock pawl plate. I searched for similar problems but found none on the web. Thanks for your suggestions.

It sounds like a short shift was added in the past and the epoxy broke.
Bruce

+1^ Bruce has got it! Those early short shift kits were kludgy.

Go to the "911 Used Parts Classifieds" forum and buy a used 915 shifter (complete). Or sometimes there are used after market upgrades available?

If you remove the housing and can determine if the housing is sound, you could get a factory short shift kit that includes a shift lever and all the internals. (No epoxied extensions or spacers.)

Or jump directly to an after market shifter. (Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.)

Thanks for the info. My broken shift lever looks like it was epoxied. Do you think re epoxy and a roll pin would fix things up. Everything else looks in good shape.

Just epoxy

Clean and weld is what I do.

A rural co-op welded mine back up when that happened at a rural race track. Worked fine, but they had burned a hole through the wall of the tubing of the lever, and a year or so later the tube broke. Have someone pretty good to the welding, or maybe braze it. I think solder would do. John doubtless can weld very well, as you would expect a professional to do.

If you like the shorter shift, purchase the factory short shift kit.

I vote for clean and weld too. Solve that issue forever.