Shifter rant thread

[kickinindian]

so last night at midnight i was letting my Fiancee drive around a vons parking lot in my car to learn how to drive a stick nothing to out of the ordinary then all of a sudden the shifter went loose and was stuck in 2nd gear. so look under the car and the shifter arm joint that connects to the gear selector had sheared off (i have a shitty steel plate shifter)...so lucky one of my friends was with us and we got home. the next day we go to picknpull and the only e30s there are autos...course right...so i pulled the linkage off a 5series hoping it would work drive 40miles are so back to the parking lot at around 1200 begin tearing everything apart was going okay until i noticed the previous owner had totally fucked with everything and instead of using the normal easy clips they used the small circlip ones so that wasted a good 1 1/2 hours of precious time after another 2hours or so i finnaly got everything off (the rear mount bolt sucks...) and obviously the 5 series mount would fit perfectly if it was shorter(i have the tranny wit hboth mounting spots) so my friends ran over to a fab shop just as it was closing and asked them to weld the arm back together so after another 2hours of suffering in 95 degree heat finnaly got it all back together at 630..now when i shift into 4th from 5th the shifter hits the driveline and reverse is right in the middle of the where 3rd should be:hitler:

[Jaxx_]

long story short: don't let your fiancee drive your car.

[squidmaster]

Why it's important to teach your kids stick. So they don't grow up to do this.

why won't the shortened 5 series work?

[S62]

^^^ +1, all my friends want to learn how to drive stick on my car. F that. I let one of my friends drive my car and he started it from a stop in 3rd gear and road the shit out of the clutch, I was like wtf! "Its chill man"

Women can't drive. No one learns how to drive stick on my car. My mom won't even drive my car (shes always welcome to) because shes afraid its going to fall apart while going down the road.

[squidmaster]

It's less likely that girls are taught stick because of the protectiveness over them at younger ages. Parents often coddle the girl and are more likely to steer her toward something safer and slower and "less complicated" because girls can't handle the "real" world or whatever.

Sucks, but at least my girlfriend knows how to. Even if she needs a lot more practice.

[kickinindian]

i havent had a chance to cut and weld the 5series stuff yet...would anyone know the diff in length?

i honestly blame the POS previous owner anything he touched to "fix it up" broke so the shifting linkage was a ticking time bomb...

yea my girl can drive stick too she is just not comfortable with it yet i guess i should have been more specific in rant she was getting more comfortable with it...

[squidmaster]

Oh, I thought that you had cut it already. Misread whoops.

[kickinindian]

no sorry not too clear i just rewelded the old one...

[Wanganstyle]

go to dealer with your vin number. order broken part. cheaper than gas to the junkyard- also new part > junkyard...

[bmwguy325is]

You can put a bend in the lower linkage. I installed a UUC shifter in my car and had to do that so it didnt rub. However there linkage is $$$ and worth it.

[Rob@UUC]

Not sure I'd recommend cutting and welding a selector rod; a new one from BMW is cheap enough that spending time welding it isn't worthwhile. Plus, any contaminant is going to weaken that weld and the selector rod sees a fair amount of repeated force, a recipe for eventually breaking.

As mentioned above, a UUC DSSR is a direct replacement and will really firm up your shifting. Read more about the DSSR here:

http://store.uucmotorwerks.com/Category506