Club-S12 Username: sschung
For a car as sporty as the 200SX, the shifter is awfully long. It feels like you're rowing a truck sometimes with the long throws it has. It also gets in the way if you're in 1st,3rd or 5th and trying to load a CD in to the cd player. I managed to pull the whole shifter out of a wrecked car and decided to make it shorter and install it in my car. If I didn't like it, I could always replace it with the original.
These are the steps I took to shorten the shifter. It was easier than I expected and should only take an hour or two to do. As a bonus, it should be possible to regain your old shifter length (minus a 1/4" or so) if you aren't too happy with the results.
These instructions worked for my car (1987 CA18ET). I'm not sure if the shifters are the same in the other cars, but I suspect they are. In any case, if your car is not a CA18ET, be real careful and check it out before following this method.
Materials Needed:
- hacksaw (or a cutting wheel)
- 3/8 bolt, fully threaded, 1 1/2" long
- 3/8 tap (thread to fit the bolt)
- cable tie
- common hand tools (screwdrivers, files)
- optional: welder
- rubber bond/glue
- Remove the shift knob. It's just screwed on. Turn it counter clockwise.
- Remove the center console unit. There are 6 fasteners. 2 up front on the
side, two under a plastic cover (it has a pull tab) in front of the hand
brake and two in the storage box. It's not necessary to remove the shift
boot from the center console. Just leave it on. Take the opportunity to
vacuum up all the crud that's accumulated there (especially in the hand
brake area)
- Remove the cover plate. There are 4 fasteners.
- That shifter shaft is pretty long, huh? You should be able to see the
rubber boot around the connection of the shifter to the tranny. Mine was
secured with a tie wrap. Cut this off and pull up the boot. Don't remove the
rubber boot. The rubber boot on my car and the wrecker car were both
torn. If yours is as well, you can also take the opportunity to try and glue
the tears together (I doubt it willl last long tho).
- Now you should be able to see two retaining rings holding the shifter in
its housing in the tranny. The bottom ring is an actual snap ring and the
top ring is just a split steel ring. There are two slots in the side of the
circular housing. You can get a small screwdriver down there and use it to
compress the upper ring and slip it out. The lower ring doesn't require any
compression at all and should just slip right out. Kinda strange. I guess
it's just used as a spacer....
- Put the car in neutral. Now just pull the shifter right out. Make sure
that you don't damage the ball or the bushing at the end. The ball with the
end bushing should all just slip right out. Damn, that shifter shaft is
long! Notice that the length is all in the upper shaft (we'll take care of
that in a second). The length between the ball and the end bushing is pretty
short.
- Put the shift knob back on. Yes, all the way. Mark where the bottom of
the shift knob is on the shifter shaft. See where the shaft starts to widen
out? Make a mark about 1/8" above where the shaft starts to widen. You don't
want your shift knob to be at or below that area because then your shift
boot won't fit back on. The space between both marks is the chunk of shaft
you will be removing. It should be about 2" long. Doesn't seem like much,
but it is. If you want to remove less, then mark where you like, but don't
try to remove more unless you won't be using the stock shift boot.
- Take the shift knob off again. Take your trusty hacksaw or cutting wheel
and cut the shaft where you've marked them. You'll now have 3 sections of
shaft. You can set aside the center section. Place the remaining 2 sections
together. The shafts should be the same size where the join. Take a file and
file the ends so they are straight and flat (perpendicular to the shaft
axis).That way when you join the two halves together the ends will mate
cleanly. If you're planning on welding the two shafts together, you can
grind a nice chamfer on each shaft for a nive weld groove.
- Nissan has been kind enough to provide us with hollow shaft! And the
inner diameter is very close to the tap drill size for a 3/8 fastener!
Wasn't that nice of them! Now you can tap both ends with a 3/8 tap. Tap the
top shaft only about half the length of your bolt. That was your bolt will
bottom out on the thread and not rotate when you screw the two halves
together. Note: Take time to set up the tap in line with the bore. You want
to tap nice and straight or your shifter will have a bend to it (not that
anyone will notice once the boot is on).
- Cut the head off your bolt. You should now have a fully threaded stud.
Screw it into the top shaft until it bottoms and then screw in the bottom
shaft. Make sure you screw the two halves together tightly (put one in a
vice and use vice grips on the other). You don't want these coming loose,
but you'll notice LONG before they come apart. If you're paranoid, use some
locktite on the threads. Alternately, you can weld the halves together. Or
do both.
- Now just reinstall the shifter. Put the retaining rings back in (it's
harder then getting them out!). Try a few shifts (with the engine off of
course) and see if everything shifts correctly and you can hit all the
gears. If not, you didn't put the shifter in correctly.
- Put the rubber boot back on. Use a new zip tie to secure it tight. Put the cover plate back on. Put the center console back on. Put the shift know back on. That's it, pretty easy huh?
- The throws feel much shorter now. It does take a little more effort to make
the shift, but nothing too strenuous. I doubt it will improve your actual
shift times, but it does 'feel' better (at least to me) and looks a bit more
befitting a sports car.
- If you want to go back to your old length, you can tap the center section you removed and put it back in place. I'd recommend you weld it tho so once you grind the bead, there won't be a parting line showing. You can shorten the shifter even more if you modify or buy a new shift boot. I'm planning to cut off another inch and sew up my own shift boot in the future. Any questions just let me know.