Couple quick questions to the group about shifter bushings...

I recently installed the BR under the hood shifter bushings and the lancershop.com base shifter bushings (i.e. "Speed Source"). When I had metal bushings installed on my 1G the shifting felt crisp, metal to metal, and I loved it. I was hoping for the same feeling (from the above mentioned metal bushings) from my Evo. Post install, the shifting feels much more vague and mushy than stock... what happened?

Has this happened to anyone else?

My car was in getting a number of things done, so I had them install these too (so, I don't actually know how they were installed)... is it possible something went wrong with the install? The task seems pretty straight forward...

At this stage of the game, I am thinking about ordering the BR base shifter bushing, and yanking out the ghetto third party brand ones in hopes to remedy the situation, but I am not sure if that is going to fix it.

Any help would be much appreciated...

 

No love?

 

Well...go check the bushings and installation.

 

I installed the AMS ones and it made my shifts feel crisp. Go check out your bushings and make sure they were even installed. The underhood bushings made the biggest difference, i didn't feel much difference from the shifter base ones though.

 

maybe possible they were installed incorrectly?

 

I finally have some time today, so I am going to pull stuff apart and take a look.

The main reason I posted this was to see if anyone else had any similiar issues... because at this rate, I am going to open her up to take a look, but what am I going to see?

There are only two real components (bushings and shift cables), unless there is something blatantly wrong with one of those, which is highly doubtful, I am back to square one. My guess would be given the difficultly level of the install work any shop who can install a boost gauge, or an MBS, or an exhaust has the know-how to follow the 5-step instructions to installing bushings... but, I guess we will see.

Hopefully it is something simple, and not some "each bushings has to be shaved 0.00005" in circumfirance, to fit properly" type of stuff... hahaha! We can only hope...

 

The poly style shifter bushings like the WORKS, use the oem clips again. IIRC, the brass,metal style ones,like AMS, use their own spacers and clips I beleive. If they didnt follow those instructions correctly it could have been installled wrong. Take a look under the hood and make sure that it is installed correctly.

 

I like when things are easy...

Anyone who is have this issue, make sure you lubed the the shift linkage/bushing area post-install, move the shift around a little and work it in, and like magic.... Beautiful shifting. It says that as a "suggestion" in most write-ups, but I am telling you, you really need to do it.

That was the fix for my mushy shifting issue... a little WD/Spray lube/Astroglide (kidding) on the under the hood bushings.

 

I installed the base bushings on my 05, and it felt a little tighter. Then I did the underhood bushings and now I feel like I have to just about force my shifter into 1st, 2nd, 5th, and reverse. 3rd and 4th feel awesome, I could just go back and forth with it all day. Has this happened to anyone else? Would spraying some WD-40 help at all?

 

I'm not very familiar with the evo shifting assembly, but by any chance, is there a shifter adjustment on the transmission? Often times there is some adjustment, just checking because with all of the tolerances in parts and assembly, going to a sollid shifting base may need to adjust the mechanism in some cases.

 

Im not sure either. I put oil on them last night and they feel smoother. I have a grease gun somewhere Ill have to dig out and get on there. My main concern is bending the pins thaqt go through the bushings.

 

^WD40 worked for me... use the "straw attachment" so you can direct it, and spray both of the under the hood bushings... shift it in and out of gear a couple times to work in the WD40... and, you should be good to go.

 

It will be tighter and feel a bit stiffer going into gear with both base and underhood bushings. I've got cheap ebay ones on my shifter base and they feel great, as does my ebay short-throw. My underhoods are Speed Source. If you're having problems it's likely not that.

I've seen issues with the shifter cables themselves before. Could it be that the extra stiffness stressed the cables a bit and they're kinking/binding causing the vagueness? Just another idea for something to check.