Mystery part in gear shift lever?

KKothand · KKothand's Garage

Hello everyone, been a while since I posted here. I was hoping that someone can explain what this is (picture attached).

Background: Lately my shifter seemed wobbly, and loose, and while driving spiritedly I missed down shifts to 3rd gear a few times. When I say missed, it didn’t engage and “slipped” back to neutral since the engine let me know by its high revving during the down shift. So I decided to investigate the gear links.

What I did: I looked first in the rear foot well where the shift rod in tunnel is coupled to the tranny and noticed that the PO has installed a new coupler bushing and everything looked normal. Nothing loose there. Then I peeked under the rubber cover boot of the gear shifter before I went full bore opening up the center console. What I found is shown in the picture; a red attachment with spring to the side of the housing. Looks fancy. Is this a modification as part of short shifter set up? It appears this is also making the rubber cover boot not to sit well, and interferes making it not to go all the way down to the bottom of the console surface. At places there is a 1” or more gap, and the boot bulges out at places, and has a tiny tear in one spot.

I want to take this apart to see if anything is wrong before I do anything else. Looks like the PO has changed the bushings in there as well by the amount of lithium grease all over the shifter bottom and housing components.

Any input help is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

J-Mac · J-Mac's Garage

Seine Systems > Gate Shift Kit

RSBob · RSBob's Garage

I have the same Seine shift mechanism and it does not have any components which would create your condition. I suspect that you have worn shift bushings. There are many threads on shift bushings. I would start with the cup style at the bottom of your shifter, by removing the shifter and then the one in the rear firewall, etc.

Pazuzu · 09-28-2016, 07:37 AM

I love that someone would sell you a car and NOT tell you about something like that.

Oh, I mean, I hate that. Why would they not tell you, and give you some heads up that your shifter will act differently than stock, why, how, and what you might need to do to maintain it?

tirwin · tirwin's Garage

The tab welded onto the left of the shifter was added for the Seine GSK. The tab on the right is factory.

The Seine GSK adds a 'gate' and spring loaded feel to the 1-2 shift plane. Meaning that the 3-4 shift plane is neutral and you have to pull the shifter to the left to engage the 1st or 2nd. I have this and so do a lot of people. Main thing it does is helps to prevent the 5-2 'money' shift.

I suppose it's possible that the shift coupler and/or the Seine GSK came out of alignment relative to one another. That would be where I would start. Since the car is new to you, maybe it's possible that the PO didn't have it aligned perfectly. It can be a bit fiddly.

If it's really balking going into gear and it's not the coupler/Seine GSK alignment or bushings, then you're going to need to start thinking about not fun things like worn synchros in the transmission. Rule out the easy/simple stuff first of course before you even start thinking that way.

Oh, you should try to contact Sherwood (911pcars) on here. He makes the Seine GSK. You might want to see the assembly instructions. There are some serious springs in there. You want to be careful taking it apart so you don't accidentally get a sudden and violent surprise!

KKothand · KKothand's Garage

Many thanks to you all. With special chuckle to Pazuzu. To be fair to the PO I went through the maintenance records and lo and behold it is a Siene system - had not idea what it was till now.

I will follow tirwin, and RSbob's advise first, and hoping it is nothing more serious than an adjustment to the shift rod and bushings.

KTL · 09-28-2016, 09:51 AM

You don't need to take the shifter out of the housing at all to investigate your sloppy condition. Instead, remove the five bolts that secure the housing to the tunnel (three large) and the shift tube bracket to the shifter (two small). When you get the housing removed, then you can look at the bushings. There is a ball socket bushing that the shifter itself connects to and the shift tube bushing is pressed into the bracket and it guides the tube to slide forward & back, plus allows rotation to occur

Good to see whoever installed the second gate tab on the shifter actually welded it. A lot of people choose to just hold it in place with clamps and that doesn't do a good job of keeping the tab where it needs to be.