Jesus. I'm glad that everything that people say should only take like an hour and a half take me like 4... But we'll call it a learning experience. The thing is in, and it's working great, and I'm happy.
There is one issue though, and that's the reverse lockout feature. The shifter seems to be too short to remain in the locked position, as in I put it into reverse and it pops off the locking mechanism. It still stays in gear, it's just unnerving.
Could I just shave the plastic lockout piece and not have to worry about it? That'd be great...
Thanks.
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the previous owner of mine just broke of the little metal tab. i woulda done this aswell, but it was already done....alot easier then shaving the mount.
So are you saying that you can put it into reverse without lifting the collar? If so mine was like that too, since i had the tab on the console side of things greased up well and if you pulled firmly it would skip over that lock. You can bend the tab on the shifter down slightly to make it lock better, or you can bend the console side up a bid (might have to snip a leg on it or something, i can't remember exactly).
As far as removing the tab, assuming it's a b&m, you can either hacksaw/bend-till-it-breaks the tab off, but you will still have the collar... orrrr take the shifter BACK out of the car, which sucks, put it in a vice, get a drill with some ti bits and drill out the hole on each side where the collar locks into the shifter, then remove the collar.
Don't worry it took me more than an hour to install mine, but then again most of that time was spent hacking at the old shift knob :S:S
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<<<<<2003 Sunfire Sedan>>>>>
I think I'll just bend the tab until it breaks, I don't mind having the collar.
Also, I must have spent over an hour trying to unclip the various clips that are in the damned thing. I was so worried about breaking everything that I was so careful to not apply too much pressure, so nothing wanted to come off.
Putting everything back together was a breeze though, because I didn't have to worry about breaking @!#$. The fore-aft cable was somewhat of a bitch though. :\
I'm always weary about things I do to my car, because I don't consider myself mechanically inclined in the slightest, so as of now it's working fine, but I'm sure you'll all see a post about my shifter assembly catching fire and exploding in a few months.
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I hear you on that. Flat head made the disasembly of those ring clips much easier! And getting the cables dialed in just perfect is a tough one. By the way, now would be a good time to change your trans fluid to synthetic if you haven't already, and grease up those shift linkages in the engine bay! you will have one smooth shifting J
I loved cars and knew a lot about the different systems but before my sunfire, I hadn't worked on them. I started out with learning how to do an oil change. My only resources were this website and eventually a haynes manual. The more you do the more you grow and now I'm doing things in way way less time than i used to, I'm willing and capable of doing anything next to motor and trans disassembly and know what sockets to expect on each part from memory rather than playing the guess the socket game. Keep maintaining and working on your J-body and you will be amazed when you look back at where you started
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<<<<<2003 Sunfire Sedan>>>>>
Or you could get a TWM performance short throw shifter which doesnt have the reverse lockout feature on it at all.
The dealer broke mine, I took it in to get that pesky clutch line that gm designed fixed. And after I got it back, it would go in reverse and I wouldnt have to pull up on it, because it engages BEFORE the plastic lockout, attached to the console.
jnickel, I actually used those instructions coupled with the actual B&M instructions to install my shifter
Thank God for them too, because I found the B&M instructions to be vague.
I still haven't done it yet, but I'll probably do it when I actually get a chance, I'm working 90% of the time.
One more question, where can I find a short shifter boot?
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yea the b&m instructions blow.
you dont need a short shifter boot, just push yours down
Moar Candy! LAWL wrote:yea the b&m instructions blow.
you dont need a short shifter boot, just push yours down
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks so
Also, I know I could use the stock one, in fact I am. When I bought the car however, the thing already had at least 2 broken clips, and over time I've broken a few more, so I'm sort of just looking for a whole new boot. I could go junk yarding, but I figure I might as well get one that fits a short shifter, and maybe get some fancy stitching done as well.
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The shift boot bracket that you can only get with both boots is the actual shifter boot plastic clip, right? Because that's what I really need. Maybe I'll get an unnecessarily fancy boot while I'm at it.
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