Shifting issues and upgrades, Shifting and Transmission Options

[gator914]

Thought I'd share some recent upgrades and fixes for the shifting issues that plagued my 914.

Symptoms included:

-Grinding when going into reverse or first gear, whether I was stopped or coasting to a stop for first gear.
-So much shifter slop, the sloppiest, loosest, bucket of gravel shifting you can imagine. Was tough to find a gear at all sometimes.
-Shifting performance declined to the point that I was no longer able to find first, or fourth/fifth.
-Clutch pedal was very loose and outside of the bounds of normal.

So what did I do about it?

I decided to take some time to inspect bushings throughout the entire shifter linkage system and no surprise, they were trashed. The firewall bushing was half missing, gear shift bushing was "wallard out", and rear console didn't look so hot either.

So I got some new bushings and decided to go with the Tangerine Racing side shift linkage upgrade kit and firewall bushing kit.

Here is a link to the install video for anyone that is interested in doing this upgrade: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQx6ISSkcmw/...zRlODBiNWFlZA==

[gator914]

The shifting experience is now much tighter and feels amazing. I know that I will never have the super tight short throw experience that I had with my NA Miata, but for a 50 year old machine, it's great!

I did find that the clutch cable was loose and tightened it up at the tranny. There is a double nut setup on the tranny side where the cable attaches. On the test drive, I felt a pop in the pedal and sure enough, the double nut was loose and the transmission exhibited a little bit of a clunk when going into first.

Perhaps I should try a nyloc nut on the outside to try to prevent it from loosening up at all during driving? Any recommendations? Safe to say that the clutch cable tension may have been a major part of the original grinding issue when shifting into first and reverse.

[NARP74]

Looks like you are missing the boot and the beer can tab at the clutch cable mount, it keeps the cable in the holder. The cable can flop around if not there. Factory just used a double nut on the adjuster. IIRC it's the only 11mm on the whole car.

[Montreal914]

In case you haven’t checked yet, I would look in the tunnel by the shifter to see if the clutch cable tube has detached itself from the tunnel. Typical problem. Also where that same tube pokes through the firewall is another place where it can crack but you would have seen it when installing Chris’ firewall bushing.

What a difference this bushing, the double support at the console and the universal joints linkage setup does! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/driving.gif)