awitte

No, really. But this car's been around for 18 years.... Are you seriously telling me that nobody's figured this out by now?!? I searched everywhere and found nothing, and one of the short-shifter manufactures even has a full page disclaimer stating that their product does not cause the rattle, and after extensive research they have no idea what does. Rumour has it that almost one out of every three shifters rattle. I'll take their word for it. Two of my 3 '7s did.

OK, like everyone else I tried cutting down one of the stock plastic bushings to about 2mm and wedged it in first underneath the bottom bushing, then in the middle between the two, and above the top bushing and found that it had almost no effect at all. This meant that the main ball joint & bushings/flatwashers was not the cause of the rattle.

The only other possiblity then is the small lower ball on the shifter itself and the little metal cup it pushes around down in the oil. I used this:



It's a little rubber O-ring, 1/8" thick with an inner diameter of 1/2" and outter diameter of 3/4". I carefully inserted this down into the bottom of the cup that the lower ball of the shifter sits in. (I didn't drain the oil first, but you may want to. I managed to do it with a pair of plyers and a small flathead without losing it in the oil.) Note that the O-ring does not go around the lower ball - it just sits between the ball and the bottom of the little cup.

And that's it. You can get an O-ring set from any auto parts store, probably. Someone else may want to experiment with maybe a 3/16" thickness, but make sure the outter diameter stays 3/4".

RETed

1) The S5 shifter uses a plastic/nylon insert on the pivot dowel groove to minimize noise.
Most short shifters do not have this design.

2) The stock shifters are all two-piece with a rubber isolation insert in the shifter lever.
This helps with heat and noise vibration also.
I don't think any short shifter has this rubber isolation design.

Although your mod works for you, I don't think it'll work in all applications.


-Ted

awitte

What exactly do you mean by "the stock shifters are all two-piece"? The shifter in the photo is a (shortened) stock unit, and I don't recall any of the stock units I've ever worked with being of two pieces so I'm not sure what you're refering to....

And while I cannot speak to whether this will work in all applications, as my experience is limited to three cars, if your shifter is rattling and you can't seem to figure out how to stop it then I'd say it's definitely coming from vibration of the lower ball and the metal piece it sits in.

Someone posted a few months ago that they had fixed their rattle by changing the **** for goodness sakes! OK. Maybe it it worked for him, but that just doesn't make sense. Here's what makes plenty of sense: Vibrations under heavy acceleration on two metal pieces with a slight bit of play between them causes a rattle. Go pick up a few O-rings for $1.19, take 15 minutes and see if you can make it work. If your setup is different, then figure out a solution based on this info. and post it for the rest of us, eh?

RETed

Take a stock shifter lever and closely examine it.
There is a top threaded section, and a lower section with the groove ball.
In between both metal sections is a rubber "center".
From the one photo above, I think you just cut off the top threaded part and cut the shifter lever right under where the rubber "center" would've been located.


I've never had this problem so long you run the stock, unmolested shifter lever.
I run a very short Razo shift ****, and I find short shifters unnecessary.
My Razo cuts the shifter lever down, but I really like the stock throw lengths.


I didn't say your mod will not work.
I said it will not work to solve all instances of a rattling shifter.

If you understand the design of the stock shifter (lever), you realize Mazda went through a lot of thought to minimize rattling.
The Kouki S5 shifter lever is the ultimate design to isolate the shifter lever from any direct metal-to-metal contact.
Your o-ring mod addresses one metal-to-metal contact point, but it doesn't address the other one (the pivot dowel groove), unless we're talking about starting with a Kouki S5 shifter lever that has the plastic nylon insert.


-Ted

awitte

*BUMP* to see if any one else has tried this yet....

Zokus

The Miata shift kit on Ebay has the nylon insert for the dowl groove so that solves that problem. However, it still rattles and the original mod of putting the oring below the smaller ball is a great solution. This is definately the solution for those who have shifter rattle that is eliminated or reduced when you press down on the shifter.

JJohnston

My shifter was feeling sloppy so this is what i did. I cut 1 1/2" off the bottom of the top part of the shifter. Then i cleaned out all the rubber vibration damping **** then welded my new shortened upper shifter minus the rubber crap to the bottom, part. i quess all my play was in the warn out rubber crap, now it feels amazing! just what i did try at your own risk