Hey man, I'm doing my clutch this weekend. I would like to know what you were talking about the skateboard wheel bearings. You weren't too specific and I've heard this technique spoke of before. People say it is a good way of redoing the shifter mechanism. Can you take pictures or explain the process a little better? I could probably go out and buy some random skate bearings and figure it out, but I'd really like to know what I'm getting into before I do it.

 

The guy at work who builds skateboards, says rollerblade and skateboard wheel bearings are all a standard size.

The inside diameter of the bearings is the right size for the stud on the shifters on top of the transaxle. The lower/rear location on mine took a little persuasion with a hammer to get lined up, but when they got onto their studs straight, they slid right on.

The outside diameter of the bearings is about a millimeter too fat to fit in the ends of the shift cables. Take a dremel with a sanding drum to the inside of the shifter cable ends, or the outsides of the bearings, until they fit. Do NOT try to get cute and make it a press-fit, unless you have the right equipment... my dad's "press" was a socket and a hammer, and he dinged up the bearings a little. Just adjust the clearance so they will go in by hand, maybe a little snug.

The stock bushing is a rubber part with a metal insert. With time the rubber dries out and the shifter feels sloppy. Push/cut the old bushing out and get the skate board wheel bearings to fit and mount them in the ends of the shift cables. I used a little grease but I am not sure it will matter if your bearings are in good condition (mine were used and a little gritty). Get some washers to put on the sides of the bearings to take up the extra space on the studs. I used washers that were for 1/4" bolts and they fit pretty well. I'll try and remember to shoot it and post a picture this week. Mount the bearings before installing the clips that hold the shift cables to give you a little slack.

With the bearings in there, you can definitely feel a much more direct connection with the transmission. In theory, with new bearings that weren't hammered into place and damaged wink1.gif , they will rotate smoothly and you won't notice them. Mine, you can feel them crunch a little but it's still better than sloppy old rubber bushings.

Okay here's the best shot you'll get without taking the air filter housing out of the engine bay:



Sorry it's not a very good shot but if you look at your car you'll see the stock rubber bushing where the finger is pointing.

This is the top/front bushing/bearing location. The thing on top under the retaining pin is one of the aforementioned washers. The bearing is almost completely hidden under the washer. There are 2 more washers on the other side of the bearing.

Is that what you were wanting?

 

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This is obvious when you are taking your cars apart, but not when you don't have a parts car right there in front of you:

Manual and Automatic cars have different, non-interchangeable starters. Also the driver's side engine mount (by the fusebox) is different. The mount from a manual car will have a place to clip the slave cylinder hydraulic line onto. The one for an automatic has a reinforcement because the A/T is heavy as ... well it's heavy.

3 fill-ups averaging a 2-3MPG increase makes me happy. It would be more but the car is so much more fun to drive it's hard to stay out of the gas sometimes. Plus, it GOES when you tell it so fast starts are much easier and more common. The other day I was coming out into traffic in a place where the traffic doesn't get long breaks. With the automatic I would have waited, because it would go buuuuuuUUUUUUUh and be too slow. The standard I left in first and dumped it... it went WAAAAAAAAAAAA and off we went.

 

Hey, thanks for the info on the shifter bearing swap. I went to the skate shop and selected some grease bearings. Grease bearings are different then roller bearings as they do not move freely without tension on them. This means they stay put unless you're trying to shift. This reduces play greatly.

I used a giant C-Clamp to press the bearing into place after I removed what seemed like quite a bit of material from the inside of the shifter cable end hole. While removing material I checked quite a few times to see if it was getting close enough to press the bearing into the hole.

The inside diameter of the skate bearing was perfect to match the OD of the pin on the shifter, in fact, it was almost too perfect.

One bearing per shifter was enough. Extra washers were used to remove extra slack up and down on the shifter mechanism, but because of the tight fitment on the ID of the bearing, the extra up/down slack is irrelevant because it cannot move.

I'm sure many members would appreciate it if you did a DIY on this. Please feel free to use these pictures. If you want I could do a write-up on it.

 

I may do a writeup in the next couple days if I remember...

I'm glad it worked out... how does it feel now? More direct, right? I have the impression that I can feel more of what's happening in the transmission than I would otherwise but I don't have a direct basis for comparison.

 

It feels perfect. I can feel the moment at which the gears make contact. When I downshift at too fast of a speed I can feel the transmission rejecting the advance into the lower gear unlike before. I can feel everything. It makes me feel like I'm more in contact with the transmission.

I remembered what you said about the crunch so I looked for the bearing with the least ammount of play to start with. The skate shop had a bunch of them in a box that you could just grab. I grabbed the best out of the box as they all have a slight slight slight bit of play. The grease bearings had less play then the roller bearings in general as well.

 

Wow it's like you drove my car that's just how it feels. Especially nice is how you can FEEL it buzzing the gears that don't want to synchronize, well before you can HEAR them grinding together. That can't but be a good thing.

The downside: you can feel every little clunk in the shifter mechanism from the shift lever pivots to the gears, much more. Almost like you're operating a machine or something. Like the difference between manual steering and the first drive-by-wire "can't feel the road" steering systems.

 

I would NOT say that's a downside. The car is a machine. It's a matter of balancing performance/longevity with comfort. I like knowing more about my car. Mine feels better in every way. It gives me a better knowledge of rev matching by just feeling the car, the shifter and looking at the speedo. No need to look at the tach. The feeling of that perfect shift into gear is just awesome when you do a rev match... I can almost see the XBOX 360 game Dance Dance Revoloution popups on the windshield stating "Perfect" "Perfect" "good" as I go through the gears. You may want to try to change the bearing.

 

If you had heard me say that, you would have recognized the sarcasm fing02.gif

I did this conversion to get more control over the car. The bearings are +1 on top of that.

The writeup is in progress.

 

So just to get some clarification. In the flywheel post (post 32) there is a table that lists part numbers, I am reading that all RDs used the same flywheel bolts, am I reading this correctly?