Short shifter

[newyorkcb7ss]

do you guys enjoy going to the junker as much as i do?

[deevergote]

Always, even just for window shopping...


Now, were you just whoring your way to 30 with those last posts?

[johnl]

Cutting the stock shifter does absolutely nothing to shorten the throw.

Umm, yes it does. The shorter the lever the shorter the throw, but it's not a 'short shifter' as such.

It also places the shift knob even further from the steering wheel (not close to start with), making each shift a long and tiresome reach.

[johnl]

It's the lever, or the cable bush/pivot, or the cable itself (i.e. one of the two cables, probably the one on the right) hitting the front edge of the lever aperture in the console, probably the metal that holds the boot in position. To give a bit more clearance you can move the whole shifter assembly backward a bit (cables and all).

The subframe that holds all the shifter components (including the cable mounts at the front of the subframe) is attached to the central tunnel with four bolts and rubber bushes. If you remove all these rubber bushes (and the associated crush tubes) it's then possible to pull / mount the subframe further rearward because the four mounting holes in the subframe are much bigger than the four mounting bolts.

To mount the subframe like this you need shorter mounting bolts and four large washers under the bolt heads to clamp the subframe in position. It's even possible to file the mounting holes (i.e. elongate them) to bring the subframe even further back. You can move the subframe backward until the handbrake assembly gets in the way, and even then you could probably grind metal to get additional rearward movement.

[Leung]

Why a Prelude S? They're all the same.

it's the only Prelude where i know the location of and the shifter was still in place as of this past wednesday.

[newyorkcb7ss]

Always, even just for window shopping...


Now, were you just whoring your way to 30 with those last posts?

ummm nooo! Whats so special about 30 posts?

[newyorkcb7ss]

Acutaully I am just hyped about my car and want input to help me fix all the little tweaks on it . Sorry if i posted alot but my friends are a little ahead of me and i am trying to figure out as much info as i can as fast as I can, so if being persistent and hasty about finding ways to fix and tune my car is "whoring" then i guess so. I thought i was just being eager to learn about my car!

[trouty]

lol

[lucid]

I have a 92 Prelude shifter assembly and bracket. I had to slot / enlarge two of the mounting holes in the bracket to match up just right on the CB. The BB lever definitely sits lower.

I did not install the short shift adapter because of my experience with my 'lude. I don't want to cut the console out until it's too thin to keep from breaking, or grind down the metal ends of the cables for clearance again.

I did cut close to an inch off the stock Prelude Lever, then rethreaded it farther down so the knob goes on as far as possible. This does shorten the throw slightly by reducing the distance you need to move the knob to get from gear to gear. I have BB seats and sit rather close, but I'm 5'10" and have no problem reaching everything with my back in the seat (where it should be if you're having fun!).

[johnl]

The 'cables' can be bent downward to provide additional clearance. Note the ' ' marks because of course at this point outside the cable sheath the cables are actually solid rods.

If your right side cable has a thread for longitudinal lever position adjustment (some do, as mine, some seem not to), then avoid placing any bend in that part of the cable rod that has thread as it creates a weak point in the thread. My cable rod broke because I bent it at the thread, and I had to repair it by silver soldering a tubular sleeve over the cable rod (super strong now).

I've gone to a lot of trouble to shorten the shift throw as much as possible because I've also lengthened the shift lever to bring it much nearer the steering wheel. Lengthening the lever increases the throw, but I still have a much shorter than stock throw despite the lever being at least 100mm longer than stock.

Note also that it's a good thing to get rid of the rubber bushes at each end of the right side cable, and replace them with metal bushes. This makes the shift lever feel much more like it's attached to the guts of a metal gearbox and less like it's attached something vague and rubbery (and no, my rubber bushes were not shot, they were perfect).

Metal bushes at the cable ends must be arranged so that they can provide some degree of universal motion as side to side motion at both ends of the right side lever can cause some stiffness in the shift action (especially at the cable end at the gearbox). In stock form the rubber bushes deform to allow this, but even this deformation adds some stiffness to the shift action (it takes some force to deform the rubber).

This stiffness is more noticable with a shortened shift action and only occurs when shifting in the the first / second plane and when shifting in the fifth / reverse plane, it doesn't happen in the third / fourth plane because the linkages are not laterally misaligned in this plane. The ideal linkage bushes would be spherical rod-ends.