There's some kind of misunderstanding here... His thought was to move both the hole in the shaft AND put new holes in the ears. This does two things:

1) Changing the position of the hole in the shifter shaft will change the ratio of lengths on each end (and hence the distances traveled)
2) Changing the position of the holes in the ears will keep the shaft tips in the same original "height" position (which should keep the original lower end engaged properly).

Unless I'm really missing something, it should work just fine.

It shouldn't matter where the fulcrum is located in space... If the ratio of lengths of the levers on the sides changes, so will the distances travelled. A seesaw with one side longer than the other will travel the same distances at the tips whether it's bolted to the ground in Michigan, or Nevada.

My mistake, I read "both pieces" as both ears, not the shifter and the ears.  I just read the two followups and see my error.  I don't have the patience to read properly anymore after waiting for the Google ads to load up.  If that's what's really happening.  

I don't think that there's enough meat there to drill the shift lever, and maintain enough strength to last, though.  Better have a spare lever handy.

 

Zed, Yeah, I figured it was some simple misunderstanding like that.

Back to the OP... If you're sure there's enough meat in the shifter shaft to put a new hole without messing up the original one, then you should be good to go. I've never messed with one of the ZX shifters with the sliding bushing, so if that's what you've got there, then I'm out of my element. But if it's a fixed bushing style and you've got the meat, it should work.

I'm no machinist or anything, but I would drill the holes in the ears first and make sure they are aligned well from one side to the other. And since you're probably doing this free-hand on the bench with a hand drill, I would drill the ear holes a little undersized and file them to a tight fit on the cross pin. Using a file, you can tweak the two holes into alignment so the pin slips properly into place.

Then, once you have the ears drilled and aligned, I would put the shifter shaft into place and use the ear holes to mark the location of the hole in the shaft. You can do the same file trick to tweak the shaft hole as well.

Short story... I would not do the shaft first. I would do that part last.

Thanks guys for confirming I am not a total loonie. How ever in discussing this my local friends all agreed it would shorten the the throw. The problem arises in actual drilling the new pivot points in all three pieces. Getting it parallel to the original pivot point seems paramount. Probably more trouble than it's worth.
I am open to your thoughts.


Don's iPhone using Classic Zcar Club mobile

Well my thoughts on the alignment and parallel-ness are described above. I would trust myself to do it, but I'm pretty good with a file.  

I don't know how hard it is to get the mating part with the ears off the tranny, but that would be a breeze for any machine shop to do if they had just the three parts involved (shaft, ears, and pin).

I don't think there is enough meat there, would be better off getting a shifter with the longer throw, or cutting and welding. the Drilling of the ears should not be too much of a issue, just use a center punch and a template and do each one from the outside drill a little undersize and then use the correct size to connect the two. The plastic bushings should allow for any tiny difference in angles if you are less than perfect. The problems I see are the stresses involved. the shifter as is has a lot of leverage, so if you weld you better do a good job. If you go the other route, just drilling into the shifter where is was not thickened, and get it too weak, well snap comes to mind. So back to buying a shifter with a longer bottom section to match up with the higher pivot point. I think MSA has something for this.

Edited May 10, 20177 yr by Dave WM

This particular lever seems to have sufficient space. I'm still waffling whether to give it a try.
Keep the suggestions coming


Don's iPhone using Classic Zcar Club mobile

That's a ZX lever.  Remove the plastic bushing and you'll see the slot that the bushing rides in.  It's essentially a self-adjusting hole that changes the bottom arm length through the range of its stroke.  I've looked at it but never really figured out exactly what its intent was.  There's a spring and it's meant to slide.  You could raise the hole to the top of the slot and see if the bottom arm length is longer than the Z rod.

I think I've written this before - maybe we should all be modifying ZX levers to work with our Z's instead of swapping Z levers in to our ZX transmissions.  They put a lot of effort in to that design.  It must have some benefit.

 

Thx Zed. I have abandon this idea. Seem like to much for so little gain.


Don's iPhone using Classic Zcar Club mobile

That ZX bushing does show though, how any misalignments of the holes will be accomodated by the bushing.  The ZX bushing is actually pretty sloppy.  The Z bushing is flexible rubbery plastic and would take up small errors.  You might not fit a brass bushing in, but the factory bushing would work.

Do you all think that spring in the ZX bushing is what makes them pop to the middle and stand straight up when you take them out gear?  I always liked that about the ZXs.

There must be some assumptions by Nissan about how people use the shift lever.  I shift with my fingertips and lots of wrist action.  Some people grab the knob and move their whole arm.  I've always like the Z shifter because it's so solidly connected to the metal in the transmission.  You can feel the bearings spinning through the lever.