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Fixing the sloppy shifter

Today I decided to attend to my sloppy shift linkage universal joint, it's been horrible for a while with massive amounts of 'play', and since I came back from Japan I picked up a Fastline Performance shifter (which are discontinued/rare-ish) so thought now would be a good time to over haul everything. I was going to purchase the Innovative replacement but a mate said let's just 'rebuild' it.

The Fashline Performance shifter next to the current DC2R one I have in the car.

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First off is a photo just showing it before we started. It's sloppy turning left, right and center on the 2 different joints.

So we grinded off the bits to separate the joint from linkage and then the joint itself. The bitch pin side of the joint you are presented with a black rubber/metal outa insert for either side with a white nylon plastic inner piece.

Straight away we found a large gap between the nylon piece against the inside of the metal T piece where the bitch pin goes in to. We thought of a few methods to pack this out, but in the end (after walking around bunnings) decided to go with these PVC piping pieces as you can see in the 3rd photo.

So what I did was file down the threaded side as the inlet was better suited for the T piece, then once it just fitted inside the T piece I cut off the smooth side/filed down and in she went! Next up I got the dremel and grinded out inside of it a few mm, so the black outa rubber/metal insert could slide in. Once this was done for both sides, all was reassembled with some greased and put back into the joint bracket.

For the pin holding the bracket to linkage I actually didn't get any photos of it as my mate was working on that piece as I did the above.. But once you grind of the pins either side, tap out the metal shaft which runs through it. He then tapped and threaded holes either end. One end is bigger then the other, I believe the 2 sizes were 8mm and 6mm. Once that was done, we bolted it in from either side with washers and she was shmick! Reassembled that to the joint and job was done!

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LEFT = original nylon piece MIDDLE = new custom PVC piece RIGHT = PVC piece before modding

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I then bolted it all back up to the car along with the new Fastline Performance shifter. It feels a lot better with everything done + the new shifter, I did try it first with my original DC2R one, much better. Still a little bit of play, but I believe this is from a few other areas, as there are multiple points in the entire shifting system. The rubber boot which goes around the ball towards the bottom of the shifter seems to move around a lot when the shifter is moved, also noticed the bushing underneath the car at the back of the linkages (takes 2 x 12mm bolts into chassis) flexes ALOT when moving back and forth on the shift.. The thought of a nice billet piece for there, I feel would make a good difference.

I've read the bitch pin itself can cause some play.. BUT having said all that, what we've done today took a few hours, 2 x $2.50 pieces from bunnings and then your left over bolts in the garage, very happy with the result! Be good to test it on the track soon.

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