And one more thing that I did back in January. The shifter’s been pretty sloppy feeling ever since I bought the car, but I never did anything about it since I didn’t know how it was “supposed” to feel. Over the past several months, I noticed it seemed to be getting even worse, so I decided to try rebuilding the handle and see what results that would give me.

There’s both a 3-speed kit and a 4-speed kit available to buy. Even though I have a 3-speed, I went with the 4-speed kit. It uses metal trunnions and springs in the side of the handle, where I guess the 3-speed kit uses rubber. Accordingly, the 4-speed kit is supposed to give more of a performance feel to the shifter, while the 3-speed setup is softer. Easy choice. :)

It’s a very simple project. All you have to do is remove the shift boot, remove the shift handle, remove any remnants of the old bushings and what not (mine was missing most of the pieces), install the new pieces (packing the cavity where the metal trunnions and springs go with some sort of grease to keep them in place), and then reinstall the handle and boot. I also replaced the two bolts that attach the shift handle as mine weren’t correct. I also bought some new wavy washers for the shift rods, but I haven’t crawled under the car to change those out yet.

The result was a fantastic improvement. The shifter is pretty precise now (not like a new car, but much, much better than it was) and shifts are easier. Very well worth the small investment and time expenditure to do it.