I have been racing this transmission for 2 years now with slop in the transmission. When its in a gear, you can move the shifter side to side 3-4" (seriously) without pushing that hard. On a race car where you shift relatively quick and mis-shifts are catastrophic, you can see why this is a priority to fix.

I have always assumed it was bad bushings or loose bolts in the linkage. I recently put brand new poly and Delrin bushings throughout, which got rid of maybe 10% of the slop. Upon examination with the car on a lift, you can turn the input lever of the transmission (by putting a screw driver where the bitch pin goes), so the slop is internal.

The transmission was bought brand spankin new, and first thing I did was put a Quaife and 4.9 FD in it. Since nothing should have been worn, and everything said I was installing said it was OEM fitment (I even called Quaife and they said no different spacers would be necessary), I didn't measure any clearances or anything. I just put it back together the same way it was with the spacers and washers the way they were from the factory.

What could this slop be from? Could it be something was left out? Could a washer/spacer be wrong? Maybe is the bad washer/spacer allowing the countershaft to move side to side creating the slop? The countershaft had to get all the gears moved over to it for the new 4.9 FD, maybe are things lining up differently and I need another spacer?

 

the shift mechanisms inside the transmission are pretty independent of the mainshaft/countershaft i highly doubt your problem lies there
for the majority of shifters i find that the problem exists where the linkage attaches to the shifter itself. at the end of the linkage is a small "tube" that a bolt goes through to hold it to the shifter. i find tightening this joint up as much as possible often tightens up the shift feel. sometimes you gotta put washers in between if there are any gaps.

if your problem is internal than i would pull the trans apart and inspect all of the gear change mechanisms and compare against original.

 

Thanks for the reply, but when we did the test, we were at the input rod into the transmission, so we know it's not just in the linkage.

 

some of my trans missions had slope in the input arm, but what i found to mostly give all the slop is the u joints right at the shifter they tend to have play in them causing that. in my street car i did a custom job and it took almost all of my slop out.

 

Right, we put all new hardware and Delrin there. After that, we simply took the linkage off and used the input rod, and found that the slop was INSIDE the transmission. The linkage slop all the way up to the input rod is minimal.

 

open the case and the the scha for play.

 

:facepalm: Get a HELMS and check clearances on stuff. Quaife and MFactory diffs usually do drop right in without any required shimming, but check just to make sure at the very least.

Did you make sure you tightened the 10mm bolts holding the shift change assembly down? And placed the bolts back in their correct holes? If these back out and allow the assembly to move, you will have all sorts of ****ing play. lol

Other than that, it's doubtful that the countershaft/etc. is moving and causing this slop. Open her up and find out. Good luck!