** This wasn't my idea, I just followed the basic directions from this thread on G2IC. Pictures went down there so hopefully someone finds this useful. **

After 250,000 miles or so, the shifter on my DA Integra was pretty sloppy. I tolerated it until I put on a shifter extension, and the side-to-side play got to be too much. There are lots of places a shifter can get sloppy, but in my case it was the vertical part of the u-joint on the front of the linkage. You can reference that G2IC thread for a better write-up, here's the cliffs version:

What do I need?

A grinder, some hardware, grease, and maybe an hour of your time, depending on how long it takes you to deal with the bitch pin. I'm a big fan of a tall jack and a good hammer, takes about 30 seconds, but do whatever you're comfortable with. Here's what I bought at Ace for about $7.50:

9x M6 fender washers (these will be the new bushings)
4x M8 fender washers (spacers)
1x steel spacer, 1-inch (so you don't need as many washers)
1x 5/16" flange bolt, 2.5-3 inches or so
1x 5/16" nylon insert lock nut to match the flange bolt

Note that Kool0aid used standard washers. He may have been working on the horizontal portion of the u-joint, but standard washers didn't work for me. Best I could tell the collar was 18mm ID, and the M6 washers were a perfect fit. YMMV, bring your parts to the store so you don't get the wrong washers

What do I do?

Remove the shift linkage from the car. Find a tutorial elsewhere for that.
Grind off one of the ends of the pin that's holding on your offending bushings.
Using a hammer and a makeshift punch, knock out what's left of the pin.
Disassemble your jacked-up bushing. It will look like this:



The white parts are what's worn, it doesn't take much of a gap in there to equate to 3 or 4 inches of slop at the shift ****, thank you very much Archimedes.

Here's how the new parts will go together:



After thoroughly wiping all the old grease and nastiness off of everything, lube up half of your washers (I used sil-glide) and drop them into the collar. Drop in the 1" spacer and then lube up the other half of your washers and drop them on top. Use the M8 washers to hold everything in. Slide the bolt in and tighten it down. Finished product:



I hacked off the extra threads. From here, it felt pretty good.

Does it work?

Meh. Washers don't make particularly good bushings, and there's still a little bit of slop. If you have access to a lathe and can make a nylon or metal bushing the results would be much improved. Or you can buy a replacement linkage from a lower-mileage car in a junkyard or from Honda/Acura. <Checks acuraautomotiveparts.org> Holy crap this thing is only $49.65 brand new.

My slop at the shift **** went from about 3 inches down to 2 inches. I wouldn't do this again, but if you're supremely cheap and your shifter is crazy bad, go for it.

 

I saw in another thread where guy used a milspec u-joint to fix his slop.cant remember where I saw it though.i have a flp shifter and the slop sucks sometimes.
have you tried tightening that bolt down even more to see if it would get rid of the slop even more?

 

OP, how long did that fix last you?

Just wondering how much time you got out of it before I do it.... Seems very prone to corrosion/oxy build up and jamming...

 

Sorry...but there's no ****** way I'd do something like this. I see the problem.

 

So my fix is to grind (or hacksaw) off 1 end of the rivet (and if necessary drill out that very same end), then tap out the rivet with a punch or like object, I used teflon bushings (the ones for the lower stabilizer bar on some civics), drilled out the holes a bit for the inner sleeves, use a lathe (or drill) to reduce the outer diameter of the bushing to the size of the inner diameter of the joint and viola...n well according to the thread, 8mm bolt...(part 1 for me...will update for the other part of the joint)