Easy DIY: Tightening up shifter play

I just made an intro detailing all the work I�m doing to my 193k mile car, but while playing around with shift alignment I realised a good deal of the play (most front to back play anyhow) is in the bushings at the tower. I have Function First parts on my future list but I�m not there yet. Shimming the bushing seemed possible but fiddly, and there are too many features on the tower to preload the bushings axially. I chose to hold the front bushing tight by drilling and tapping through the tower into the bushing to restrain it axially. I had some short (10mm or 3/8� or so) M5 socket heads so I used those. M6 / 1/4� would be too big in my mind. This seem to work well, the tower took the threads ok. I didn�t have a fastener/rod I could send through, so I did one on each side and it seems pretty solid. That front/back bushing slop is gone, we will see how it holds up. If it goes sideways I�ll be in for FF parts anyhow. The holes in the tower are too small to cause trouble. If you have shift tower access this is a 5 minute / $1 mod. Thoughts?

Ingenious! My first though was "How did you make a tapped hole while the bushing was still in place?" Because I KNOW you can't get them out in one piece... I am guessing a shallow divot into the bushing is OK?

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My plan was to drill through the tower into the bushing to pin the bushing in place in the tower, since the bushings are intended to be static and not rotate. For sure, the risk is affecting shifter movement as well. I was looking at shifter install guides and judging from those it looked like the shifter block didn�t protrude past the plane of the shift tower very much. Since the result of failure here is replacing all these parts (except the tower, unless I went Numeric/997), I was ok with drilling into the bushings to see. With the drill or tap, there was a little bit of impingement on the shifter when they crossed the center line, so I went with short fasteners. With more care/knowledge on location, a thinner fastener (roll pin or bolt/nut) could go straight through. The tap or drill bit didn�t stop the shifter either, I just saw them wiggling moving the shifter around. I didn�t want my new bolts in there making plastic shavings so went short and diametrically opposed. I pinned the forward bushing only as some rear play seems warranted for easier/smoother gear selection - I could feel this was the case just pushing the bushings one way or the other playing with the shifter. People sometimes complain about notchiness with the nice shifter kits, and after playing with this I think over constraining them might be the case. It feels pretty good taking the �loose� slop out as is. I�ll probably still go Function First eventually, and get a shorter shift as well, but atleast now it feel �stock� instead of �worn out�. .