Cayman Shifter Linkage Mod

Hello all, I'm excited to have joined the Planet-9 forum. It's been a great resource for my 2008 987 Cayman DE1. I figured I would make my first post a source rather than a request. I have seen many posts discussing shifter play and improvements. I noticed some room for improvement in the linkage during my transmission (6sp) replacement. There is a great deal of play fore and aft in the "Modulation Lever" (98742402300). Inside are rubber dowels that I'm sure were much firmer when the car was new. I replaced these with Nylon dowels witch IMHO provided significant improvement in gear engagement and feel. It might be possible to do it with the transmission in, but I did mine while it was out, here's how I did it: The lever is located on the upper left side of the transmission held on with a 13mm nut. A small puller is needed to remove it from the shaft. If left in place the cover should be removable without pulling the base off the shaft. Slip a flat blade screw driver under the cover and lever off the cover and rivet - this did not require much force. Note 4 rubber dowels as part of the perimeter seals. I turned down some nylon rod to 6mm dia x 7mm length. Snip off the rubber dowels and install the nylon ones in their place. Reinstall the seal, cover and rivet.

Nice mod hope it helps tighten the shifting up. Cman21

How does this part affect the shifter? Thanks. I also have a DE1 and am going to install a lightweight flywheel when I install a new clutch. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hi WadeJ, That would be a great time to do this. When you have the transmission out operate the lever - easiest way is to rotate the inertia wheel. You'll see the play. This part is designed to provide isolation/cushion in the shifter in the gear engagement (fore/aft) direction. Changing the aged cushioning material to a harder plastic increases the feel and removes a good deal of slop in that direction. I can now actually feel the transmission engaging the gears - more like an internal rail shifter. I was cautious that this mod would transmit noise though the shifter but there is enough other rubber parts in the cable ends to prevent any noise traveling up the cable. Good luck on your clutch job.

WadeJ, this is the first time I've read of anyone modifying the shifter linkage "downstream" of the cables. Thanks for sharing your innovative solution, and please do report back with your impressions after you've lived with this mod for a while..

280z28 is the innovator. I am going to follow his lead. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Would this mod help with the issue noted in the following thread? http://www.planet-9.com/987-cayman-and-boxster-service-and-tech/98924-shifter-slop-after-transmission-removal-reinstall.html?highlight=Shifter+slop

Nice! I thought I was the only one that did this mod. I used a high durometer rubber for NVH isolation but stiff. I made a few others as well.

Did it make a noticeable difference? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

From Numeric Racing? Looks like the ends of my shifter cables waiting to be installed. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No. I am not dealing with numeric . These are custom Cablecraft cables. The same manufacturer numeric uses but these have thicker ends.

For those that want to modify the linkage that crosses the top of the transmission (shifter linkage as opposed to the selector linkage on the drivers side). Here are the rough steps. You can choose metric or standard - up to you, and you can choose from a bazillion materials and grades of rod ends and rods. 1. The ball studs on the existing linkage mount points will need to be drilled out. All the ball studs look like riveted studs and they drill out just fine. 2. The hole left in the modulation lever will need to be threaded for the rod end to screw into and the threaded end on the rod end will need to be shortened most likely. 3. Buy longer than needed male-threaded rod so you can cut and get to the exact fit. Once it fits close you just adjust the screw-in depth of the ends to fine tune. 4. Get some green or blue loctite to for all the threads. Total cost: Less than 40.00 Qty Part Link 2 Rod ends McMaster-Carr 3 washers (10 pack) McMaster-Carr 1 thread tap McMaster-Carr 1 Rod McMaster-Carr 1 Nut (100 pack) McMaster-Carr If you come up with a better way share it with the rest of us.

Thank you everyone who posted these excellent pictures and descriptions! I've been frustrated with shifter slop since owning this car. Installed numeric cables and shifter and STILL have slop. Now I've got a weekend project! Once McMaster parts come in, Ill post pictures and results too.

Quotes source posts: 26545, 6072, 6516, 93827, 95630

Thanks! All the links work except for the first. What rod ends did you use? I appreciate your time helping with this.

I edited my post and fixed the link.

Looks like it might. He shows the part right at the end of the vid. Need to see it while moving the linkage to be sure. Why it changed after the work was done is interesting. The parts I address should be a slow decline over time.

That looks like internal play. There is a ball and spring (detent) that holds the selector shaft stationary. When you shift, the force pushes the ball up into the spring and allows the shaft to engage the next gear. If the ball and spring (detent) were not there the shaft would freely move back and forth. This is the "resistance" feeling when shifting. The mod for the modulation lever will eliminate millimeter squishiness only.

I've done this on the stock shifter end as well. Sliced off the ball, drilled, tapped and inserted a 1/4 rod end. There is a company on here that sells machined replacement inserts for the stock shifter. It would be perfect if they would make their piece fit a rod end.

Reviving an old thread here (and hoping 280z28 is still around!). I have lots of play in my transmission ( 987.2 , 6 speed, 2010) which I'm trying to resolve. I will be trying the nylon rod insert trick for part 987 424 023 00. However, it seems that this bracket has side-side play as well as fore-aft play. Same goes for the bracket on the other side of the transmission that moves between the gears on the horizontal plane of gearknob movement. Here is a video that hopefully explains better than words! Does anyone know if there is a solution to this? New brackets are £3-400 just for the left hand side, and I'm not sure that would solve the issue. I haven't found any tips relating to the bracket on the right hand side of the gearbox.

I just did the modification with the nylon inserts two weekends ago and it worked great to reduce the fore-aft shifter play. My issue was that I was missing two of the four rubber dowels due to a careless dealership service. So now I have two original rubber dowels, and two nylon inserts. Here is how much play I had before: And after: I bought 1/4” OD x 1/4” long nylon spacers from the local hardware store and then used a dremel with a sanding wheel to reduce the diameter to get a perfect fit. The nylon spacers have a hole through them so you can put the spacer on a nail or piece of wire to quickly reduce the diameter with a dremel. Worked great and no increase to noise or vibration after installing them. Next step is to reduce the side to side shifter slop which I think can only be solved with the Function First Shift-Right Solution.

delman 1012: Thanks for following up with the videos, and I'm glad that your shifting action is (finally) restored. Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

Finally going to do this soon. QQ re the rivet, I'm assuming you put a new rivet in (the old one will just fall out if you just push it back in surely?)- do you have the size of the new rivets?

I reused the rivet. It didn’t want to come out by itself, so seemed fine to reuse it. It is really just a locating pin. The nut actually holds everything together.

Fab, thankyou!

I got sick of the excessive fore-aft play in my 987.2 shifter so I just did a similar mod today. It's not too bad to do in the car, you just need to grind off the head of the rivet with a Dremel or something similar. I ended up using 1/4" silicone rubber round rod iin 70A hardness from McMaster-Carr (P/N 9808K22). This seemed slightly softer than the OEM rubber nubs but it's also slightly larger diameter, so when you stuff it in there there's much less play. I just cut off the old nubs, cut the silicone rubber to 7mm lengths, and then wiggled & squeezed them in. I left the rivet shaft in place and just stuck the cover back on it without a head. As OP noted the rivet is not really that important, the nut holds the cover in place. Used a little blue loctite on the nut and done. It's a very nice improvement and the car shifts much better now.