And finally the last bit of progress brings us up to date.
Today my Tarmac Eater short shifter arrived.
I have long been on the lookout for the B&M short shifter, but have never managed to find one for sale.
Tarmac Eater Motorsport on eBay sell them, £40 a pop, £50 with a gear knob, so I decided to get one.
It arrived today and so I went about fitting it. Looked at everything in detail, they looked virtually identical in terms of lower-half dimensions, except for the fact that one of the knuckles for the forward/back linkage is about an inch further forward of the stick.
I removed the original and greased up the short shifter, screwed everything back together and connected it. And it felt badly wrong.
It wouldn't return to a central position at all. I disassembled and reassembled everything 3 or 4 times, made sure it was all fitted correctly, that the spring was in the correct place, made sure there was lots of grease in the mechanism, and still it wasn't returning.
Not entirely sure why, I took a chance and swapped over the plastic seat that the bottom of the linkage sits in, and used the original instead of the one that came with the short shifter. This did the trick, when I reassembled it the stick would now spring back to the central position. But no celebrations yet, as it wouldn't go into 2nd, 4th or Reverse.
Due to the fact that the knuckle stuck out much further, it meant the stick needed to be pulled much further back to engage 2/4/R. Only it couldn't because it was fouling on part of the linkage housing. So I disassembled it again and filed down the housing by about 5mm, and then refitted it.
Finally it worked. The new knob that came with it has a bit of a nicer feel and throw, its very slightly heavier, but the difference it made is noticeable. So noticable infact that I quickly borrowed a friends driftworks weighted gear knob and the feel that his offered was amazing, such positive and smooth gear changes, so I have now bought (and waiting for delivery of) a heavy-weighted gear knob, 475g instead of the 165g currently.
Don't worry though, I've not gone for a drifters gear shifter, it looks pretty identical to the new flat-top one I fitted today.
New shiny and anodised short shifter
Old Puma gear knob... 150g
New flat-top gear knob... only 15g heavier but the feel is much better
Old v New gear knobs
Old v New gear knobs... height from bottom of thread to top of knob is slightly less on the new one, so will sit slightly lower on the threads
Old linkage and gear knob
New v Old linkage, quite a big height difference, 3 inches almost
New v Old linkage, quite a big height difference, 3 inches almost
New short shifter height
Old standard shifter height... big difference
As you can see, the knuckle on the short shifter is much longer than on the original, hence the need to file down the housing in order to engage 2/4/R. Picture makes them look quite similar but the difference is much bigger irl.
Finished look. iPhone camera is potato.