mx5cartalk.com

Hi all,
Picked up our new car this week - an 01 NB8B. Something I've noticed with it is when the car is in gear, the gear stick is really sloppy, has heaps of left-right and up-down play. When out of gear though it feels quite tight.

Is this just a case of changing some bushes?

Any help appreciated.

Cheers
Paul

does the car have a short shifter installed?

in the ball / fulcrum part of the shifter, there is a slot with a plastic insert , there is a pin that sits in this slot. on the cheaper short shifters,the pin wears against the crappy plastic insert and the slot gets larger and wider than it's suppsoed to be, so the stick starts to slop around a bit.

not sure if this is the same problem you're having, but that's what mine's like anyway.

No short shifter installed.

Okibi, found that thread also - just bumped it back up - there is actually no resolute to say if that fixed it or not. Hopefullyt someone can shed some light.

Having only picked it up on Wednesday night, I've had no tinker time with it, so will pull it all apart on the weekend anyway.

Most likely cause is the bolts securing the lever to the top of the gearbox - they are notorious for coming loose. Undo to rubber boots and have a look at the them.

Or the rubber shift boots are damaged.