gear stick shaft hot when driving
 

Hi guys

have 1990 S5 FC 13BT JDM spec, stock engine/turbo and manual transmission with for twin exhaust/pod filter.

Use redline oil in my transmission, recently replaced my stock leather gear knob for an Rx8 5 speed knob, there is now a 'gap' between the top of the vinyl shifter boot and bottom of Rx8 knob which wasn't present with the stock knob.

So when I am driving and touch the chrome shaft it feels pretty hot to the touch.got me thinking how hot does the transmission get when running?.the engine/gearbox has done 167,000Km (100,000 miles) and no noticable noise coming from the 5 speed.

do they always run hot? I can hold my hand on it but not yet measured the temperature.

cheers

You may want to remove your vinyl shifter boot and shifter surround and inspect the middle and inner rubber shifter boots. The heat that radiates from the turbo, downpipe, exhaust manifold and engine gets caught up into the transmission tunnel, causing heat to seep into the cabin through the old worn out rubber shifter boots. My shifter gets very hot from this exact issue. Those middle rubber boots keep a lot of that heat out.


Middle boots:

http://mazdatrix.com/pictures/G-Tra-...490B-FD01B.jpg


Inner boot:

http://mazdatrix.com/Pictures/g-tra-di/ShiftBush5.jpg

yeah,funny you mention that , late last year had my clutch replaced for HD one and mechanic mentioned the rubber boots were ripped but not an operational issue, just road noise.

I was more worried my tranny was wearing out or something.will look into the boot thing.

cheers

heat is usually generated by the exhaust, if it's not extremely hot to the touch i wouldn't be overly concerned about it. once the car starts to lag in performance and the shifter becomes rather hot it generally means the engine timing is out of adjustment or that the cats are failing.