thefirebirdm@n

Up front, don't know if this will apply for Camaros and I also don't know what year Firebirds have the springs mentioned below though I would expect all 82-92 to have them. The writeup below is based on the auto shifter handle in an 89 GTA.

So this week I pulled the Auto Shift **** out of the car and took it apart. It had a LOT of slop in the button meaning it moved around loosely and there was a pretty big gap from the point where the button was fully extended out of the shifter handle to actually engaging the spring-lever mechanism. It was the latter that I wanted to investigate and try and fix. I wanted the button to extend out of the shifter under light tension so that it engaged the spring-lever mechanism immediately as soon as you pressed it.

For those that don't know there is a staple holding the shifter handle onto the shifter shaft. The staple is on the side of the shifter handle facing the radio so you don't see it unless you look on that side. A small prying tool will remove it and the shifter handle will slide right up. To remove the button and spring-lever mechanism from inside the shifter handle, there is another smaller staple holding the assembly inside the handle that is located on the underside of the handle on the button side of the handle. Once out you'll see that the staple is designed to stick up into the handle into a cavity in the plastic button assembly which keeps it from popping out of the shifter handle under tension. This staple takes an additional step to remove. Once inserted into the handle the arms of the staple are spread open to create a V or a tent-like shape. This keeps the staple from falling out. Using a very small bladed screwdriver you can compress the two legs of the staple back together then pry it out with the same prying tool. Once the legs are together it should come out as easily as the first staple.

Once you have everything out you'll see that the spring in question is small on one end and large on the other. Its also fairly stiff for a small spring. The small end goes over the small plastic lever that goes into the shifter handle first and the larger end of the spring goes towards the large plastic part that protrudes from the shifter handle and is what the button attaches to. Now here I will mention that after researching here I heard that Modern Day Muscle had a replacement spring. Mine had broken in half so I ordered one. I have to say I did not like the spring the sell. It was way too short and did not provide enough tension on the button. Now there is a small chance here that the spring they sell is actually for the plastic rod that is inserted down in the shifter handle itself and is not meant to be used inside the shifter handle. If that's the case, someone please chime in and let me know. My GTA did not have a spring in place with the plastic rod but I'm also wondering if it didn't pop off when I first removed the shifter handle and I just didn't notice it. If there is a spring there I'd like to know so I can put one back when I re-attach the shifter handle.

So after testing the MDM spring I thought well, I'll just have to go to some stores and start looking at springs. Hardware stores often carry various size springs and online retailers like Auveco do as well (though I think for this application, looking at springs and I could hold in my hand to evaluate seemed like a better option. As I was thinking about this I noticed that there is a spring under each of the two bolts holding the shift indicator housing (the vanilla colored part you plug the small little 194 bulb into) to the console shifter plate. I recently bought a used console plate assembly off ebay for parts and it had the same two bolts and springs on the shift indicator housing so I had two extra springs if I decided to use one of them. Initially, I thought well those springs are way too short for this application but I took one off to look at it. I noticed they were (oddly) under a lot of tension but thought hey that's great, I wanted a nice firm button press. Taking the bolt off and removing the spring I noticed that when fully uncompressed it was almost exactly the same length as the small plastic lever that goes into the shifter handle. I thought, PERFECT!! I also noticed that there was a small black plastic circular washer under each of these springs where they attach to the console shifter housing. They have a slight lip on them for the spring to sit on. I decided to use these as well. I put one on the plastic lever before putting the spring over the lever and the other would sit on the end of the spring facing the large plastic piece that the button attaches to. The challenge was getting the lever with the spring on it into the shifter handle, then inserting the large plastic piece over it without the small plastic washer falling off the spring. I decided to put a couple of dabs of super glue on the small back washer and then glued the spring to it.

After that, it was pretty simple. I put the new spring/plastic lever assembly into the shifter handle first, then inserted the large plastic piece, making sure it engaged the lever-spring assembly. Reinstalled the small staple when depressing the entire assembly and then released it. As expect the tension on spring pushed the large plastic piece out until it was firmly pressed against the re-installed staple. Exactly what I wanted. Slop gone. I installed the button back on it and tested it. It worked perfectly. No more slop. The button engaged immediately and had a nice firm feel to it all the way through the range of motion. I finished it off by spraying a little WD-40 into the bottom of the shifter handle to make all the plastic parts a bit slick so the button engagement would feel a bit more smooth.

I'll try and add pics to this write-up a bit later. Hope this helps someone.

Drew

iTrader: (58)

FWIW, There's no second staple on a lot of Firebird T-handle shifters.