Limited Lateral Shifter Travel

A friend not on this forum who did his own build just a few hundred miles ago lost the ability to get into first and reverse. Upon talking to Dennis O. he learned that some shifters incorrectly limit shifter travel to the left.

I took my shifter out today and, sure enough, had the same problem. When pushed all the way to the left, the shifter mechanism hits the edge of a white nylon molding before the cable travel is exhausted. I used a ~1/8" dremel bit to trim away about 1/8" and now shifter travel is determined by the cable (at least, with the cable disconnected from the transaxle).

The area to carve on is the shallow white "U" in the picture below, which shows the left side of the shifter look at from below, after I did the carving. This will be easily recognizable when you have the shifter out.

Of course, if you are suffering from this problem another solution is simply to reduce the amount of lateral travel required of the shifter. This you can do by mounting the cable to the arm on the transaxle closer to the arm's pivot point. This will of course raise the lateral force required at the shift knob proportionally.