How to Install a Short Throw Shifter

hey guys chrisfix here and today I'm going to show you how to install a short throw shifter in your car in this case we'll be working on my 1998 Mustang GT the drifts thing but this process will be similar if not identical on most makes and models so after watching this video you'll be able to replace your stock shifter with an improved short throw shifter now I ended up getting a Steeda short throw shifter from elimar it was highly recommended to me by a bunch of mustang owners so I'm excited to get this installed in the drift Stang if you want your own short throw shifter I'll leave a link in the description for where you could get one and real quick for those of you who don't know a short throw shifter does exactly what it says it shortens the throw of the shift so you don't have to move the shift knob as far to get it into each gear and the way this works is surprisingly simple so here's the stock mustang shifter you can see the pivot point is right there now if we look over to the aftermarket short throw shifter the pivot point is moved upwards so by moving the pivot point up and makes the shifts a lot shorter so a really simplified way to show you how it works is pretend the shifter is this piece of wood right here where my hand is is the pivot point up top is where you grab the shifter that's where the shift knob would be and then down here where it hits the side of the house is where the shifter is clicking into gear so on a stock shifter the pivot point is down low so there's a large throw to shift it into gear now a short throw shifter moves that pivot point upwards and there's a lot shorter of a throw to get it into gear and that's basically how it works it's that simple now there are three reasons why I'm upgrading to a short throw shifter first I want to give you an idea of the stock throw so watch me road through the gears and biro through the gears I really mean rough shifting this thing is like rowing a boat and the long throws not only slow down your acceleration but it also keeps your hand on the shifter for a longer period of time rather than on the steering wheel and while driving and performing any type of motor sport like drifting you want to try to keep your hands on the steering wheel as much as possible to maintain control of the car besides the long throw of the shifter the second problem is my shifter is very clunky trying to find gears could be challenging especially when you purposely skip a gear like if you're braking hard and down shifting and I'm not sure if you notice but the spring in my stock shifter is non-existent the shifters supposed to spring into the middle when in neutral which helps you find the next year especially when you're going from second to third gear and finally since this is the drifts thing I'm excited to show you guys my brand new ASD hydro ebrake which I will be making an install video for so stay tuned but for now this is the area I want to install it in the only issue is the shifter in first and in second comes very close to the hydrati brake so I'm hoping with a short throw shifter it stays tighter in here and there's more room for the ebrake now before we install the new shifter I want to take a measurement on the old shifter to see how long the throw is so I'm gonna put it in first gear measure it from the front of the shift knob and shift it from first into second and that's about a four and a half inch throw which is a lot for a sports car so now that we have the throw distance for the stock shifter let's go and install our short throw shifter and see the improvement we get so the first step is to remove the shift knob and all you have to do in most cases is just unscrew it in this case I have an aftermarket shift knob so I have an adapter on here that I just need to unscrew once your shift knob is removed now we need to remove this plastic bezel around the shifter and the easiest way is just to grab underneath here and pop it out on the Mustang we have a cigarette lighter so we need to make sure that we remove the wires from that before we pull it out so just remove the ground wire and then the power wire and now the bezels detach and it slides right off next we want to remove the shifter handle which is connected by two bolts down here break each of those loose with the ratchet and then we could hand loosen them the rest of the way that's one and that's 2 now we can wiggle off the shifter handle and there we go next we need to remove lower shifter boot which is held in by two bolts down here and then two bolts back there then extension is going to help here and we're gonna start with the front bolts that's one and the other now moving to the back two bolts these are a little bit harder to get to but still not bad and make sure you don't lose these bolts because we're gonna be reusing them now just lift the lower shift boot and get it over the shifter and then it slides right out and now we have access to the shifter to remove the shifter there are four bolts similar to the lower shift boot we just removed these are a thirteen millimeter and that is a lot harder to break loose than I expected so time to use a breaker bar so with the breaker bar break all four bolts loose it's amazing how a little extra leverage makes it so easy to break these loose now we can get back in there with our ratchet and remove the two front bolts and then remove the two rear bolts to free our shifter now with all four bolts removed grab a flat head screwdriver or a pry bar and pry the base of the shifter to remove it from the transmission and the old shifter should come right out just like that look at all that play that's why sometimes it was hard to get into gear or it felt clunky there's a ton of play in this now if we compare that to our aftermarket shifter there is no play at all in this this feels nice and solid so our new shifter has none of that slop in it but another piece that we're gonna be replacing to make the shifts feel firmer is this plastic bushing the old plastic bushing is right down in here and it comes out just like that and although this bushing looks like it's in good shape I'm kind of curious about how much wear it has so I have a caliper here I'm gonna measure the inside diameter and we have about 16 millimeters that's the width inside and here I have our new bushing so if we check the inside diameter of this there should be a smaller number Wow almost by one millimeter so the old bushing had a 16 millimeter gap and the new bushing has a 15 millimeter gap so there's an extra millimeter of material in here so that should give us a lot tighter of a fit so this ended up being worth the extra few bucks since mine was worn and it just slides right in so it's easy to replace now we want to install our new shifter but before we do that the old shifter was sealed to the transmission with a gasket you could actually see some of the leftover gasket still stuck on the transmission so we want to clean this mating surface and since we don't want any of the old gasket material falling into the transmission a good idea to shove a towel down there to seal it off also when removing the old gasket I highly suggest using a plastic scraper and not a metal one a plastic scraper isn't gonna damage the surface but if you use a metal one it could grab an edge and gouge the surface which could cause a leak and then if you want to get it perfect grab an abrasive sponge or scotch brite and get the rest of that gasket off with the mating surface clean carefully remove the paper towel so you don't drop any debris into the transmission and now you have two different options you could go with your ready-made gasket or you could use an RTV gasket maker this is a lot less messy and that's what I'm gonna go with but if you don't want to buy a gasket you could use RTV gasket maker and spread a thin layer of gasket maker around the edge and it accomplishes the same exact thing all right so let's install the shifter I found it easier to line the gasket on the shifter first and then push the shifter ball joint right into the bushing without moving the gasket just like that and now we can bolt it down with the included bolts and I want to add some medium strength threadlocker to the bolts because there's a lot of vibration in the transmission this thread Locker can be easily removed with hand tools but it prevents the bolts from loosening up while you drive the bolts are now ready to be hand tightened so the shifter is held in place and you want to Snug them up in a crisscross pattern so they tighten evenly and that gasket gets compressed evenly you really don't have to but I like to use a torque wrench to get it exact and the bolts get tightened into 15 pound feet of torque good so now our ship Durr is in and now we want to adjust our ship stops and there's two shifts steps there's one back here and one up here so let's adjust this one first and what we need to do is we need to put this into fourth gear so make sure it clicks completely into gerd just like that so we can make our adjustment all the shift stop is is a bolt and you want to tighten the bolt until it just touches the handle of the shifter once it's touching then you want to back the bolt off about a quarter of a turn now if you really want to get technical you could get a feeler gauge and there's supposed to be a 100th of an inch gap in here so this is a hundredth of an inch feeler gauge and it just has slight resistance I'm actually gonna back it off just a little bit more it's better to have these a little bit looser than a little bit too tight because you want to make sure that you go completely into gear so you want to back this off about a half a turn and that'll give you a 1 one hundredth of an inch gap once your gap is adjusted properly get a little bit of threadlocker put it on the threads hold the bolt head in place and tighten up your nut use one wrench to hold the bolt and another one to tighten the nut so it's locked into place then move the shifter forward and then bring it back and there should be a visible air gap between the ships top and the shifter and this looks perfect now we'll do the same thing for the other shift stop so put it into third and the whole point of these shift stops is to prevent you from overextending your shift and damaging the selector Forks in your transmission especially when you're shifting aggressively now you want to quickly test out each gear to make sure it feel smooth and is going into gear make sure that shift stops aren't touching the shifter and everything looks good so let's get the boot on and finish this up now this shifter comes with a washer to keep the boot from getting pinched while you're shifting with the washer on we could then add the lower shift boot which slides right over the shifter and then tighten down the four bolts we removed earlier to hold the lower shifter boot in place we are so close to being done I can't wait to test this shifter out now we could bolt on our shifter handle and there's a few adjustments we can make first do we want on this side or on this side I'm going to put on this side so I have more clearance for the hydro ebrake and the other adjustment is do we want it up top or down below I'm gonna have mine up higher because I think that's going to be more comfortable and instead of connecting the shifter handle directly to the shifter they give us this rubber insulating bushing which is going to help with vibration and transmission noise so hand tighten a bolt with some thread Locker on it good screw in the bottom one as well then tighten them with a ratchet so they're nice and snug on the other side you want to use the supplied Jam nuts to ensure the shifter handle doesn't come loose and tighten them down with the ratchet good now grab your shifter boot and let's connect the cigarette lighter connect the ground and the power wire and then slide the boot over the shifter handle the plastic trim just pushes in and clicks into place and all we have left to do is to attach the shift knob I use a little thread Locker for the adapter pieces and screw them on and then tighten it with a wrench and now the shift knob just threads right on perfect alright and that's all there is to installing a short throw shifter now let's get this in first gear and get a measurement to see how long the throw is now so we're measuring from the same place before the top of the gear knob in first gear moving into second we're about three and a half inches before we had four and a half inches so we shortened the throw by one inch not only did we shorten the throw by one inch but if we get our hydro ebrake and we put it in place and then we put this into first look at that gap that is a lot larger than what we had before and if we put it in second again we have a lot of room here so there's plenty of clearance and that's because we move the shifter over just a little bit so now I can wrote through the gears with the hydro ebrake not getting in the way and now let's do what we've all been waiting for let's go for a ride holy smokes what a difference not only is the throw shorter but every shift feels amazing there's this nice satisfying click to each gear yes I can't believe how much better this is and that's all it takes to install a short throw shifter as always I hope the video was helpful and if you aren't a subscriber consider subscribing next I'll be showing you guys how to install that hydraulic ebrake which is going to be awesome so stay tuned

Channel: ChrisFix

Views: 4,934,650

Rating: 4.9291964 out of 5

Keywords: Short shifter, short throw shifter, manual car, standard car, aftermarket shifter, install a short shifter, install a short throw shifter, mustang shifter, mustang, mustang short throw shifter, short throw shifter install, manual transmission shifter, manual transmission

Id: cYjaxVMkMk0

Length: 11min 44sec (704 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 14 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/TFiPW]

I love his videos. Really detailed for someone who's unfamiliar to car maintenance and modifying.

[u/[deleted]]

the drift-stang needs moar coil-overs.

[u/Three_Fifty]

I know how to do all of this stuff but I watch every video he makes because I love him lol

[u/eduwhat]

I don't think that's a good spot for the hydro e brake. gonna be banging his knee against it

[u/oldchew]

I love this guy's accent.

[u/[deleted]]

Is there a technical reason for the donkey dick shifters in that generation of Mustang, or is it just to be different?

[u/greentoiletpaper]

Is there a channel like this for motorbikes?