I put in polyurethane shifter bushings and a short shifter into my 91’ DX Hatch this march. The shift lever has been rough in neutral as it is scraping the top of the exhaust shield. While removing the exhaust shield could solve this, it wasn’t scraping before the short shifter install. After inspecting the shifter bushings today, the bushings at the shifter base we’re completely shredded. I replaced those with a solid metal washer I had laying around but now it shifts even rougher lol. I also put in a new dust seal and dust cover as I thought this might have been the reason for the shifter hanging lower. The bearings on the short shifter were pressed in (damaged) and have resistance when spinning them. Do I still need to run the flanged bushing in the shift rod even with a short shifter that uses a bearing rather than the spacer collar? And why would the shift lever be scraping the exhaust heat shield if the OEM one didn’t? Any insight would help.

 

That washer you used was too big for the inner race of the bearing and put all the pressure on its metal dust seal when you tightened it up. Replace the bearing, should be easy to find one using the code on the sides of the bearing. Problem is that you didn't use a much smaller washer that only rides on the sides of the bearings inner race and against the insides edges of the linkage bracket and you just sandwiched everything.. may have well of had no bearing!
Your big washers you put in are most likely rubbing on the outer race now and not allowing the bearing to move.. ditch those and no bushings are needed because there is a bearing BUT use the smaller washers inside the linkage joint!
Don't tighten it so much either, just snug with using some blue locktite on the nut.
The shifter bottom has to be longer from its pivot point in order to make it a short shifter.. if it wasn't, it wouldn't shorten the throw..
Now if you wanted a "shorter" shifter just cut the oem down and re-thread it lol
You have to remove the shield, will be totally fine with out it.

 

Thanks for the reply. Got it, I am thinking of getting a new short shifter entirely. The short shifter I bought didn't come with any washers, so I used the flanged bushings that were on the car with the OEM shifter because I didn't want it to have nothing. So you are saying to run small washers that only ride on the inner race of the shifter bearings but are still between the shift fork (2nd image)? And well noted on removing the shield, time to buy a sawzall lol.

 

Correct. If you do go for another shifter, I would suggest a b&m..

 

A short shifter changes the throw of the shifter. In order to do that, the length of the shifter below the pivot needs to be longer.

And/or the top of the shifter can be shorter in length too to reduce throw.

​​​​​​​And yeah, don't bind the inner and outer races of bearings. They don't work that way.

 

Thank you for the reiteration. I didn’t know how a short shifter worked until you both spoon fed it to me, thank you!

I have since ordered a new shifter that comes with two small metal rings that look to be the diameter of the inner race. Hopefully it works! Will still need to go in and rip off that heat shield to solve the scraping as well.

 

Bump for small update. New shifter came in today and has a nice bend, and most importantly, spinning bearings! However, when trying to put in the metal washers (that only ride on the inner race of the bearing), I noticed that the gap is not large enough to fit a single one. So I temporarily put in the shifter base into the shift fork without any bearings just to hold the linkage up. The gap is very small and I don't really feel comfortable with bending the fork outward to fit both washers. Should I go to the hardware store and look for smaller width washers that will fit, or continue with no washers? I test-shifted the car and neutral no longer scrapes as I did remove the exhaust heat shield and goes into every gear fine. How bad is it to run no washers while not being on too tight to make it rough?

 

Pics would be useful to give advice.

 

You can definitely go for thinner washers and slightly bend opening the joint to fit it. Just make sure you have clearance on both inner sides of the linkage joint and the shifter so it doesn't rub.

 

So I realized I am kind of dim.. the shift fork (second attached photo in my original post) is totally bent inward which explains the washers not fitting. Is there a safer way to bend the fork back into a straight position than using a hammer lol. Otherwise, I might just look into getting a new shift rod entirely.

 

Use a big Cresent wrench and pinch/grab the flange that is bent and pull it back.