All;


I rebuilt the T-5 in my '88 IROC just a little less than two years ago. One of the things I made sure to do was to buy a new shifter boot--the round one that goes between the shifter lever and shifter base, because the one on the shifter was torn.


I was under the car a few days ago, investigating an issue with the torque arm bushing, and noticed there's a small tear in the driver side of the boot, just above where the wire retainer holds the boot to the shifter base.


There doesn't appear to be anything at all near the boot for it to have caught on, and no oil leaks; the boot is as clean as it was the day I installed it, so I'm a little puzzled as to the cause.


Obviously, I'm going to have to replace the boot, but does anyone have an idea what caused a less than two year old shift lever boot to fail in the first place?

 

Wow...74 views, and no one has any idea how to keep this from happening again, or what causes it to happen?

 

Don't know what to tell you. Boot was split on my Mustang's T5, so I robbed one off a Camaro T5 I had laying round. Eventually switched shifters and didn't need the boot.

Where'd the replacement boot come from? Seems a lot of cheap aftermarket rubber parts are extra el-schito quality. You might try a different vendor. Or an aftermarket shifter. Check out the trans mount, etc to make sure the shifter isnt rubbing against the tunnel.