stiff B&M shifter

[socal98SVTC]

The shifter in my recently purchased 98 SVT is the B&M shifter. It is extremely tight. It wont even center itself when pushed to one side when in neutral. Is this normal for the B&Ms or did the installer over torque the bolts. Ive driven a number of manuals, front and rear wheel, and have never had one that needed to be muscled into gear. From 1st to 2nd or 3rd to 4th is okay. But any of the up and over shifts are a pain.

 

[BrApple]

pull the shifter boot and see if the centering spring was installed. some people use to remove the centering spring claiming that they could shift faster without it or something.

also if its there and its still try a stock shifter and see how it is. there could be an issue with the shift cables or the shift forks.

oh, also check that the main wiring harness is out of the way of the counter weight on the shift tower. it most likely is but you never know.

 

[socal98SVTC]

The centering spring is still there. I took the boot off to lubricate it and found that a couple of the bolts were striped on the inside of the tork star. Don't have access to a stock shifter, but you gave me an idea. I should be able to remove the cables to rule them and the forks out. Where is the counter weight?

 

[BrApple]

on the shift tower.

 

[CSVT1214]

I had this same problem with mine. I installed the centering spring wrong on 2 different shifters. It installs a little different than I had pictured. Getting into 1st and 2nd became very difficult. I realized when I went to get a new centering spring from the junk yard (thinking mine was bent) and saw it installed different.

I really wouldn't know how to explain it, but remove the spring and see if that fixes it. If so, you just need to reinstall it properly.