Sorting play in gear lever with a 37p spring from Porsche.

Now, we all like a nice stiff kn.......gearstick, with as little play as possible. We all change the bushings in the gear selector itself, fit short shift kits and change the gear cables, but as these cars get older, something we ignore is the force springs that pushes down on the detent pin on the selector inside the gearbox itself. If you get under your car and wiggle the lever that the gear cable is attached to you will be able to see if that itself has play. If you have wiggle that end, changing the gear lever, cables, bushings etc, will reduce the effect of the play, but it is simply hiding it. Also, a SSK might be bloody hard to get it into gear too. The spring presses down on the detent pin which in turn applies force to the shift arrester, as the spring ages the force is reduced and thus you get play. Now, the spring itself is just 37p from Porsche, the new pin is £15. however, I would probably argue that changing to a new pin is not worth it, in fact probably not a great idea. Some make a new pin which has 1mm less "ball' in it, this helps the 2nd gear pop out on some transmissions, albeit a temporary fix. So a slightly worn detent pin might be of benefit. But a new spring definitely helps, if you want the gear changes to be even firmer, you could drop an 8mm ball bearing between the spring and detent spring too. But a new spring should suffice. You will be able to feel the difference at the gearbox as you put in a new spring, if you have a ball bearing pop that in too and see if it gets too firm. For me, Porsche have always had a nice easy, light, movement but a mechanical and precise feel. It is just when we start to get play that it starts to come across as sloppy. The problem with changing this spring is room. There is none. It is up above the lever, there is a 13mm bolt that needs to come out above it to get to it, and then an 8mm allen cap that is not only probably 20 years old and rusty, is put on using sealant in the factory but also doesn't even have enough room to fit a normal allen key in there as you don't have enough room to get between the gearbox and the body of the car. I cut down a allen key last night and still couldn't get it in there as, using and endescope realised the hole was all corroded and the key would no longer fit. So I guess I will leave it until the next time the gearbox is dropped. My point of this thread is to say, if for any reason your gearbox is coming out buy the following parts and fit them, or get whoever is doing the work to fit. With it out it is literally a 2 minute job. The parts needed are..... 13 99630323700 screw plug M 18 X 1,5 £3.10 14 99630323500 compression spring £0.37 15 99630303500 bolt (detent pin) £15.50 Image below should make a bit more sense of the above I hope.

This How To on Pelican parts shows how to replace the standard Detent pin with a GBox unit, suprisingly, GBox don't mention changing the spring either. Amyway, the images will show you the 13mm bolt, the 8mm allen cap, and give you an idea of what needs to be done. https://www.pelicanparts.com/techar...Pin/TRANS-Installing_996_Shift_Detent_Pin.htm

While searching for images a second ago, I just found this....... https://rennkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/2nd-Gear-Pop-Out-8mm-Ball.pdf Porsche actually sell an 8mm ball bearing to put in between the detent pin and spring to firm things up a bit. So probably don't even need a new spring, an 8mm ball bearing will do just as well, maybe even better?