Well I picked one of these up off ebay brand new for $140 shipped. Just got the part today and was happy to see that it is indeed the updated version with the larger pin stop.

Install #1 went without a hitch, I followed the included instructions which are very easy to follow and very specific to the Z/G with pics which made things nice and clear. Took her out for a spin and WOW what a difference! The new shifter tightened things up nicely, shifts are so much more crisp and short, very confidence inspiring compared to the stock shifter which I thought was pretty good to begin with. I guess you just don't realize how weak the stock shifter is until you actually compare back to back with a quality aftermarket unit. I had a B&M on my C5 so I knew pretty much what to expect and I was not disappointed!

You might be wondering why I said "Install #1", and yes, your suspicions are correct, I ripped everything apart and did it all over. Why? There was some serious rattling going on while cruising, metal on metal, and it was definitely not something I would be able to tolerate very long. It turns out I had tightened up everything good, so I did an inspection of my lube job (used the supplied tube) and there was a decent enough coat on everything, but I noticed how runny it had gotten when exposed to the increase in temperature. Well, I couldn't really think of anything else to try, so I decided to replace the runny lube with some heavy duty high temperature grease, and really glop the stuff on thick. So I buttoned everything up again, took her out for a spin, RATTLES GONE!

Well there is still some noise and vibration coming through the stick, but it's not really all that bad. Being curious about the vibrations I examined the stock shifter, and noticed that the metal sleeve that fits into the ball is surrounded by a plastic cylinder housing. That plastic piece, whlie providing vibration and sound dampening, is probably also what gives the stock shifter a looser more sloppy feeling because of it's flexibility. The B&M ball is all metal, providing the crispness, but also allowing more vibrations and noise to resonate up through the shifter. I think it's just a trade-off you make with a more precise unit, as my last B&M was the same way.

Overall a great mod, I highly recommend the B&M!

 

Ok, well after a few days of the grease settling, some of the WOT vibrations are back. Not sure yet what is causing the problem, but there seems to be only a couple areas that could be causing this:

-The spring is rattling inside the new B&M cup
-The metal sleeve is rattling against either the metal ball housing and/or the linkage bolt

I have a feeling it's the sleeve, so I will try a thin wrap of teflon tape or something and see if that fixes it...

 

Well it's not the sleeve. I wrapped the outside of it with teflon tape, as well as the bolt and ball, still getting rattles.

Next I'll try to pad the spring somehow.

 

Good luck Copbait. I installed a Hurst shifter in a 96 Camaro Z28. It was a good mod, but alot of noise and vibration came up through the shifter. I tried everything, grease, rubber tape, sound dampening foam. Nothing seemed to work. The benefits of the shifter ended up not outweighing the noise. I hope you find something that will work.

 

waddup copbait, local hayward Homie lol. I just installed my B&M that I picked up brand new for 85 shipped . No rattling, but I have this weird zipping noise when I shift. It actually sounds kind of cool.

I don't know if it's beause I just changed the tranny and dif fluid yesterday, but it's a little bit tough to get into 3rd and 5th. Do you have this problem?

 

yo yo wassup my hayward home slice =)

Hmm, I don't seem to have any problems shifting, I'm very happy with the action in all gears. It also cleaned up my 3-4 shift which I kept hitting the 2/4 divider because of the longer throw on the stock setup.

The rattling is a different story however...

 

Well, I was finally able to get around to wrapping up the spring, hoping it would eliminate the rattling. I ended up using some vent tape and covering both the inside and outside of the spring with it. The tape is very similar to duct tape with the string lining, but is much thinner so it's pretty flexible and allows the spring to retain most of it's "springyness"...



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Well it did eliminate some of the noise while cruising, but there is still some rattling going on, and the noises under heavy throttle or WOT are still very noticable

I suspect it the metal sleeve again, because when I took it apart I noticed that the teflon tape I had wrapped around it and the bolt had virtually dissolved so that was pretty much useless.

My next attempt will be to wrap the sleeve and bolt with something stronger, and also maybe add some plastic washers to the ends of the sleeve to prevent side to side movement.

At least now I KNOW that it's not the spring so I can do all future work on this from under the car and not need to do a full uninstall and rip apart the console.

 

my lady took the car today and said there was something wrong with the car. It turns out the zipping noise is actually rattling noise. In the past I used black molly for my short shifters. I'm going to find my can of black molly and cake some of that in there. Also it turns out that 5th and 6th were hard to get into because the gate wasn't adjusted properly.

I'll let you know how the black molly works and you can have some if you want.

 

btw that's a hella good price, nice find

 

uhh...wth is black molly? neva heard of it. hmm, that's got me thinking. maybe something that solidifies or hardens into a rubber or glue type stuff would be enough to settle things down....

 

I'm going to take the shifter apart and put silicone to stop the shaking. The shaking is coming from the center of the short shifter where the bolt holds the two pieces together. I saw a little play in it before I installed the shifter,but didn't think it would cause anything noticeable.

 

Yea, that's the area with the metal sleeve that I'm also trying to figure out how to dampen. Good luck!

 

Well after a week of driving with the spring covered, I have no rattling at all coming from the shifter except for at WOT, so it seems like that was worth the time.

 

I just made the next attempt with this, which ended up being some 5-Minute Epoxy. I glopped it all over the sleeve and bolt, waited for it to get close to setting, then reassembled everything. It did seem to help, but there is still significant rattling under heavy throttle. So basically still no solution, but I will not admit defeat yet!

 

Well, even though I like this shifter, I have given up and gone with the Rogue Short Shifter:

https://g35driver.com/forums/showthread.php?t=57038