Like what seems like more than 1 out of 3, my short shifter rattles like hell in my 88 GTU. Recently I read about a possible solution to this problem that I haven't read on this forum yet.
1. Drain shift box.
2. Fill shift box with grease.

That's it. I'm not sure if this would work, and am also curious if there could be any downsides, at least worse than that noise. The idea sounds reasonable...deaden the sound chamber effect of the box....any ideas?

 

um... i wouldnt do that. just drive with your hand on the shifter. serriously.

 

dude i have a stock shiter and it still rattles WTF FUcked up tranny ...

 

yeah i'd say thats pretty retarded grease is not a substitute for oil

 

definitely a bad idea.. grease doesnt exactly have the same viscosity as gear oil, not even close. I'm thinking shifting is going to be a major pain in the *** full of that thick crap, you won't be able to accurately fill it to level, and I doubt that it will lubricate as good as the stock oil will. The problem is with your tranny, so live with it, get your tranny rebuilt (not even sure that will cure it) or get another tranny.

 

http://mazdatrix.com/shiftrat.htm

 

RTV on the extension part (the ring piece that changes the fulcrum)...

That may or may not help.

I'm pretty sure there's no reason you can't use grease in the shifter housing... iirc one of the gurus suggested using grease in place of gear oil, since the only thing it lubes up in the shift tower is the shift linkage (which isn't really a very high-stress part in terms of rotation).

 

I use a miata short shifter. It doesn't rattle at all, it's as tight as a rifle bolt and it only costed like $50. If the rattling bothers you that much, just but that shifter on ebay and install new bushings. There's a writeup in the archives

 

Yes, don't use grease, you know there is hundreds upon hundreds of lbs of force in the shift selector area, you wouldn't want to under lubricate it!

There is a nylon bushing indicated being down there per the parts fiche, maybe thats worn and thats what it is?

 

My "Miata" short throw eBay kit was basically a starter kit and required lots of fiddling to make it work properly.
The locating pin- fits in the groove of the pivot ball- was oversized and needed to be turned down to fit loosely enough and the bushings needed to be shimmed to get the pivot ball seated snugly when the assembly was tightened down.
It took several days of shimming, then driving, then reshimming to arrive at the right combination but it's been great for the last few months.

Make sure you replace the rubber gasket/sleeve that seals the shifter to the new mounting ring-This one @Mazdatrix- as it seems to be the final piece of the puzzle to eliminate rattling.

You also need to consider the shift **** itself.
A nicely weighted **** will help overcome the lesser leverage of the short shifter...I've used this part from Nissan (32865-35F00) and it's perfect. Same threading, so it screws right on, and great feel.

I don't see how grease could be forced into all the areas that oil will naturally flow to, so I wouldn't use it.
My tranny and shifter housing both have RedLine MT75/90 in them and shifting- even in very cold winter weather- has been smooth and crunch-free.

 

I bought a stock Miata shifter on eBay for 36 bucks about a year ago. I had to grind off about 1/8 inch off the bottom of the lower ball and also took off a small amount of material from the lower ball's nylon bushing so it would fit inside the tranny's shift shaft hole. It took a few tries bolting it on and removing it etc. to get the fit just right, but the throws are short, precise and no trace of rattling. I used the stock Miata shift **** as well. I wouldn't have anything else.....LOVE this shifter!

Part of the rattling problems some people are having might be from not using nylon bushings and not using the wavy springs like what the stock shifter uses. I would think the nylon and the springs would absorb some vibration and noise.

 

read http://mazdatrix.com/shiftrat.htm, it says that rattling shifters is TRANSMISSION SPECIFIC. Changing bushings or shifters, according to them, is not going to fix the problem!! You can try a few things on your own, but if there was an easy and obvious solution to it rattling, someone might've said something about it!

 

A couple of years ago I posted a "fix" for rattle that worked for me. Run a search for curing short shifter rattle. Basically, seat a rubber washer at the bottom of the shifter tower. Others have had success dipping the ball of the shifter in liquid rubber (the stuff that you use to coat tool handles).