Drop-a-Daimler

I love shifting my SpeedShift 5-speed (and my old 7G-Tronic 7-speed) manually and do it maybe 90% of the time. But on both my automatics I found that it was very easy to miss a shift. By that I mean a tap to the left would not cause it to down shift. This happened a lot. Sometimes I was finding it would miss the shift input 1 out of 3 or 4 times and it was really annoying! I put on a heavier after market shift knob and that helped a little but it didn't make that much difference. I always though that the shift boot leather was getting bunched up on either side and would impair the stick from traveling far enough to signal a shift. I found I was always pushing the leather aside once I was in drive to make sure it was not hitting the stick. I really hate it when you are relying on a speedy down shift to 2nd for engine braking before a hard corner and you get nothing in the slit second you needed it. So today I took the shift boot off in frustration and tried to figure out why. With the boot off the shifter works flawlessly; every time. I tried everything to keep the leather boot from wiggling down between the stick and the housing. But to my surprise that turned out NOT to be the problem. It turns out that the leather boot was getting "folded" at the very back and keeping the stick from going all the way back into drive. So bumping it left or right would not give it enough input to shift. If you look at the mechanism you'll see why it has to be all the way back to really work easily. So I attached some stiff plastic to the underside "hidden" part of the boot to keep it from folding and it works great now. Every time with just an easy tap. It's heaven now!

kjb55

Thanks for the tip. Any reason you prefer the shifter to the steering wheel mounted buttons?

Drop-a-Daimler

The buttons NEVER niss which is great. But I think it's two things that keep me from using them more. First, probably because I haven't had it for very long. I think that the paddles (buttons) will grow on me. I've never had a car with paddles. Like my bike, it came with a heel-to shifter and because I spent the last 20 years riding without it I shied away from it at first. Actually I still don't use it much. And second, I use the old 9 & 3 hand position when I drive aggressively but I like the old (cool) one hand on top of the wheel and one hand on the stick Steve McQueen style of driving. With the proper hand position the buttons are great but doing the Bullitt imitation the stick is my favorite. Coming from driving a long series of 5MT and 6MTs it just feels more natural.

Tyler Durden

Great info...

Awesome pic!