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What did I do wrong?

alien_yet_familiar

Hard-core CEG'er
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Joined
Aug 21, 2007
Messages
1,105
Location
Montana
I replaced my stock shifter on my '98 SVT last night with a Steeda Tri-ax. Everything went smoothly, as I followed a combination of Steeda's instructions (for the Focus) and a how-to on here.

My problem is that now it is SUPER hard to shift into first and second. It's not getting into the gear itself that's so hard, it's getting the shifter all the way through the neutral gate so it will line up with the left-most gear gates. If I have to get into first quickly, I have to use both hands to pull the shifter over. Did I do something wrong with the centering spring? I thought about just pulling that off but really don't want to deal with sloppiness, that's part of the reason I wanted to replace the stock shifter.
I have a riser plate, and installed it when I did everything else. I searched and found one person that had a hard time getting into reverse, but it was just mentioned in passing, not as a topic with a fix.
 
If you think you did something wrong with the centering spring then just take it off and see if it gets better. Though I don't have a short shifter, I took the spring off and didn't notice much of a difference anyways.
 
I figured it out - when I cut the shift tower I didn't get it all the way cut out, and had to remove another little piece of material. Thanks for the help! It works great now.
 
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