Make your own short shifter?

[Skids]

Hey everyone!

I'm new on the scene and am looking (like many others) for inexpensive, yet fun mods to make the ol' P5 a bit unique. I've seen lots of discussion about "short throw shifters" and am wondering if someone can talk a little about why a shorter shifter is desireable and why I (or anyone else reading this) might consider investing $100+ in one.

I also had another thought that perhaps some of you who have performed this mod could comment on. Would it be possible to simply shorten the existing shifter? You could remove the shift knob and the "leather" skirt, cut off an inch or two with a hacksaw and re-thread the end to accept the knob. I haven't removed either the knob or skirt to look at whether this would be possible, but I think I've felt a retaining ring of some sort that holds the skirt up. If there is indeed a ring there, you'd probably have to find some way of putting a new groove in the shifter for this ring, but that could probably be done by hand with a dremel cutoff wheel.

Looking at some other posts about shifter replacements, this would probably take about the same amount of time as swaping out the shifter for a new one, and would be a LOT cheaper. All you'd have to buy would be the die to cut the new threads... ~$15.

If the consensus is that this would work, could anyone lend some insight into how much I should cut off?

Anyway, it was a thought I just had. Any comments?

 

[stef_nz]

umm...that will make your shifter look shorter i guess but its not why you spend the money.

to oversimplify - a short shifter is bent differently and is generally used in conjunction with a couple other bits (ie new bushings) to both shorten and sure up the actual throw.

your changes would be a lot shorter and a lot more positive.

some say it helps with the "changing from 1st to 2nd at redline and missing the gear" issue but basically it'll just feel a whole lot better.

this is why you spend the money.

so you see - its a short throw shifter, not a shorter shifter (although they are shorter just to confuse matters....now i'm rambling).

hope this helps

 

[MrJoel]

The short throw shifters take the pivot point on the shifter and raise it. This makes the top shorter and the bottom longer. With the longer bottom end you do not need to move the top section as far in order to change gears.
So just cutting the shifter will only make it look like it is a short throw shifter.

 

[JcsMP3]

If you remove your leather boot you will see that you can unscrew a section of the shifter.. no cutting required... this is what I was told from other P5 owners.

take off the nob. take of fthe bood and there should be a piece you can unscrew on the top of the shifter... then you will see mroe threads and voila.. you have a short shifter.... i think it's the same height as the MP3 one... not sure though...

Jc

 

[Hawkeye]

If you remove your leather boot you will see that you can unscrew a section of the shifter.. no cutting required... this is what I was told from other P5 owners.

take off the nob. take of fthe bood and there should be a piece you can unscrew on the top of the shifter... then you will see mroe threads and voila.. you have a short shifter.... i think it's the same height as the MP3 one... not sure though...

Jc

Well, first off, you have to remove the entire center console to get to the shifter.

Then, as far as the extension, it isn't threaded on, it's attached with some kind of rubber bushing. When I took mine off I used a torch to heat it and twist it off. The section that you're left with is not threaded, so you have to use an aftermarket knob.

In the end, I wasn't happy with the result, so I bought a B&M short throw shifter and I am VERY happy with it!

 

[Skids]

Jc, thanks for the thought!

Unfortunately Hawkeye is right though. I went out this afternoon and took everything off to have a look and found, just as he said, that the extension is attached with a strange rubber bushing of some kind. I'm guessing that it serves to insulate your hand from engine vibration.

So the bad news is that it won't just unscrew. The good news is that if I can somehow get that rubber bushing off, I could shorten the shifter with a hacksaw and then just glue the bushing back on with some epoxy. No die required!

I'm not sure how I'm going to get that thing off though... I had a pipe wrench on it this afternoon with no luck Hawkeye, when you took the torch to it, did it totally destroy the rubber, or did it all slide off nicely? In other words, would it be reusable?

Any thoughts on how much I should cut off?

 

[pr5owner]

yes, after multiple futile atempts at shortening the stock shifter i decided to just get the kartboy short shifter + bushings, and i couldn't be happier, worth every dollar

 

[Hawkeye]

Skids, when the extension came off, the rubber wasn't in great shape, but I'm sure if you had to your could reuse it. Also, when you use the torch, put a wet rag around the bottom of the shifter to protect the bushing from heat and any drips from the rubber.

In the end, I think you're pretty much stuck with the shortened shifter once you remove the extension. IMO, it's worth the money to get a short shifter like the B&M or Kartboy and definitely get the Kartboy bushings. The shifter will feel completely different.

 

[Skids]

understood.

I guess I (like I'm sure many of the folks on this forum) am a bit <I>too</I> enamoured with the "do-it-yourself" concept. Sometimes I just gotta suck it up and admit that the pros can do a better job that I can

I'll prolly end up screwin around with it for another month or so and then realize that if I'd just ordered the shifter at the begining it'd be done by now and I could have saved myself all the hassle.

But of course I'm not going to do that... it's a good thing I don't learn from my mistakes.

Thanks for the insight guys!