Shifter Inspection...All out of wack?

So with the recent dropping of the drive shaft, I have this nice clear view of my sloppy shifter. And oh wow is me.

I can not make heads or tails of what is going on down there, or what is supposed to be going on. RealOEM does not show something that looks like my setup. Where they have a metal bar (Shifter Arm #1) for the shifter to sit in, I seem to have due metal plates and a foam pad in between the two plates?

The underside. Picture-Down is towards Car-Rear. That squarish thing above the metal plate is a thick foam pad of sorts.
At the bottom of the picture is a bracket that is attached to the car body, but to nothing else (I loosened it and turned it for the photo). Looks like that plastic bushing used to do something between the bracket and metal plate? Sorry about the out of focus shot
[w3.gorge.net]

For the fun of it, here is what it looks like from the top.
Again, even though the shifter sinks down into a metal piece of sorts, everything around that is foam.
[w3.gorge.net]

I'm about to start taking the entire mess apart, if only to clean it all up from the leaking tranny fluid and grime. I thought I'd get this posted in case anyone has some thoughts. Any thoughts really, I welcome everything :-)

Cheers!

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1989 - E30 - M20 - Manual. Approximately 270,000 miles
2000 - E46 - M52TUB28 - Manual. Approximately 110,000 miles

Dur. The one time I forget to look in the Bentley first. Turns out it has a pretty good description of what is going on.
Of course, what it doesn't do is sh*t-out-of-wack analysis of my pictures ;-)

From the scribbly B&W photos in the bentley, it looks like my litle rubber bushing thing is supposed to just sit between the metal plate and that bracket without any sort of screws... At least the bentley doesn't mention having to remove anything at that end.

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1989 - E30 - M20 - Manual. Approximately 270,000 miles
2000 - E46 - M52TUB28 - Manual. Approximately 110,000 miles

You should be able to tell, after the shifter is out, what you'll need to tighten it up. There are basically two types of shifters, you've got the early type with the flat plate mounting (the bar set up is the later style), I used to have a list of the rebuilding part numbers for this, I'll give a look tomorrow... You're going to be very happy when this is all done; shifting a car that's had its shifter bushings redone is a nice feeling. Having a decent drive shaft is a neat thing too B) Don't forget to check/change the gearbox fluid.

Rick

Quote
rkj
You should be able to tell, after the shifter is out, what you'll need to tighten it up. There are basically two types of shifters, you've got the early type with the flat plate mounting (the bar set up is the later style), I used to have a list of the rebuilding part numbers for this, I'll give a look tomorrow... You're going to be very happy when this is all done; shifting a car that's had its shifter bushings redone is a nice feeling. Having a decent drive shaft is a neat thing too B) Don't forget to check/change the gearbox fluid.

Rick

If you had the part numbers, awesome, but don't spend too much time looking around.

So I'm reading the bentley, figuring out how the plate is attached to the transmission. Looks like the plate is attached with two bolts, with nuts put on with loctite (or equivalent) to keep them from coming off. Get this, the bolts must go through some sort of bushing in the tranny or plate, because they are so disintegrated that I can move the plate up and down. The nuts go right through whatever bolt hole they were supposed to be pressed against. So much for that super important loctite

I may hold off on further work until I get the seal replaced. The Drum is attached to the output flange on the tranny, so while no longer a problem for the guibo and drive shaft, still obstructs my view of the top of the transmission, and makes getting to those bolts for the shifter plate hard.

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1989 - E30 - M20 - Manual. Approximately 270,000 miles
2000 - E46 - M52TUB28 - Manual. Approximately 110,000 miles

Try these RealOEM drawings instead.

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Ferdinand
Try these RealOEM drawings instead.

Heeeeyyyy!! That's it!

Ferdinand, Rick, do I need to tell you two, or do you already know that you're the men?


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1989 - E30 - M20 - Manual. Approximately 270,000 miles
2000 - E46 - M52TUB28 - Manual. Approximately 110,000 miles

Quote
Earendil

Quote
Ferdinand
Try these RealOEM drawings instead.

Heeeeyyyy!! That's it!

Ferdinand, Rick, do I need to tell you two, or do you already know that you're the men?

Yourwelcome