Last night on my way from home after work I came to a stop light.
I noticed the shifter in my 5 speed felt weird, it had a loose feeling when it was in gear. As the light turned green, I took off and began to shift from 1st to 2nd and my shifter just wobbled around as it if had broken and come sepreated from the linkage.
Since I was in first still I immedialty pulled into a parking lot right next to where I was and parked it.
Since it was late and dark I had to leave it here for the night.
This morning I went to my car with some tools and a jack and jackstands and began taking out my straight pipe and removing my heatsheild and "pling", the bolt that holds the shifter to the linkage fell out. Great!
Seems the nut came off the other end of the bolt and the bolt manged to work its way out of the shifter.
It was an easyfix so that was a good thing, Im also glad it didnt happen on the highway.
My STS had been installed for over two yrs and it never dawned on me to check it and ensure everything was tight.
I put in a bolt that was a bit longer and that had the plastic teflon in the nut to lock it on with some loctite.
Im hoping that will help avoid this in the future, so guys with 5 speeds, take my warning. It wouldnt be a bad idea to check it every so often. At least once every 6-7 mo.

 

Yea that would definately be scary on the highway. Good to see you were able to stop and check it out later on. Good thing I'll never have this problem.

 

What kinda STS you have?

 

Why would that be scary? Brakes, clutch in, pull over, car off.

 

Where's the fun part? I read all that and no fun part.

 

Brake, downshift... uhh car doesnt go into gear, brake some more, cant downshift... semi merging onto highway... you get the idea

 

Yeah...I'm curious what STS you have as well.

Thanks for the heads up though, something so little as that one bolt could cause some major problems for the unknowing.

 

Loctite is my friend Anything I don't ever plan on taking out again. I put loctite on it.

 

I have a OBX shifter. It mounts the exact same way the OEM unit does, it just has a shorter throw.
Heres a pic of an OEM and unknown aftermarket sts. They both require a bolt to go through the bottom and attach to the linkage.
Pics are just to show the similarities of the two.

 

Man...it is a good thing you caught that before it got really bad. That could have messed you up greatly.
Glad to hear everything is all right.

 

i would have ****ed my pants!!! glad you caught it while you were close enough to a parking lot and not doing 80 on a highway. could have been a very bad experience.

 

good thing u caught it man. i have to check mine cause sometime i have the same feeling.

 

Sorry, I wasn't questioning the construction of your STS. Just wondered what it was.

 

No offense taken. I just expalined and provided the pic because some are unaware of how the shifters attach.
The obx is a cheap sts, I only paid 20 bux for it but its served its purpose very well, except for this incident. But I dont blame the shifter, I should have used loctite or some other sort of locking nut to begin with. I Never thought about it coming apart on me.

 

Ant, I didn't say downshift. I said brake, clutch in to stop car from stalling. Whatever. No use in petty arguements.

 

No no, not arguing... just giving an example

 

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