i want to shorten the lengh...not throw of the shifter in my '83 GSL to be something closer to the lengh of the miata...does anyone know how to do this...i have thought of removing the lever and taking it to a metal shop...

 

By shortening the length of the lever, you effectively shorten the throw as well. You could remove the lever from the trans and cut it to length. After that, you could re-thread the shortened shaft( if you have the proper tools). this would probably be difficult to say the least because the threads are rather large. My advice would be to forget the threads and use a roll pin to hold the **** to the lever. Just some ideas... hope they help.

 

Give " Moremazda " a PM. He did this and it looks pretty nice. and its right around the same size as the MIata shifter.