ERA Shift Linkage Upgrade

[Dave Wharran]

I started to notice last summer that when the car got up to temp, the shifter linkage would sometimes get difficult to move fore and aft. Moving it side to side first would seem to free it. Kind of annoying while driving. I felt sure the problem was in either the front heim joint or firewall spherical bearing. The shifter rod has to slide through both these bearings when moving through the gears. Had it apart several times, polished the shafts, etc. No help. It only seemed to do it after extended running where maybe the tunnel temp (where water lines run to the front of the car) would go up to near water temperature, and transfer heat to the shifter mechanism.

Anyway, I got two 5/8" Thomson ball bushings (model with seals), and two 30mm spherical bearings. Made small spacer bushings to fit the ball bushings into the spherical bearings, and housings to mount the spherical bearings, one to replace the firewall bearing and one to replace the heim joint at the shifter. Had to drill the hole in the firewall out bigger and cut the heim joint off the shifter mechanism housing. Got them to fit with no cutting or other modifications to the z bar or remaining rods. It was a fair amount of work making the housings and difficult to put the one in the firewall with the engine in,but......the results are fantastic.
Had the car on a 3 hour drive today to get it good and hot. A good modification that was worth the effort.
Cost was about $40 for the bushings and bearings (gotta love ebay!). Had aluminum stock, so it was "free".