MGW Shifter install.

[Towelly]

Hey guys, finally got her installed. Although I was not able to take as many pictures as I wanted to for a write up I still snapped a few. My Saturday was way more busy than I expected it to be. I work 3rd's so I wasn't off until 7am Sat. morning. So I woke up at around 2pm and went to workin' on the vehicles. I went over to my moms and changed the oil and filter in her Taurus and did the fuel filter, air filter and oil/filter on my step dads truck. Then I did the shifter on mine all the while knowing I had to be somewhere at 6pm. I ended up getting everthing done without cutting corners (Besides the picture taking). So here goes:
Step one, prepare for carnage:
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Step two, remove top part of center console that is held by two (2) phillips screws at the back end under the lid on the storage space at the rear of the center console:
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Should look somewhat like this near the shifter:
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Step 3, uh.... we don't have a step three yet.... (Obscure South Park reference anybody?) :
Step whatever because I'm missing a bunch of pictures, long and short of it is there are two (2) 10mm nuts on the end of two studs that hold the back of the factory shifter on, after you remove those you can remove the the linkage at the bottom of the shifter (one (1) 8 mm bolt IIRC). Swing the linkage toward the drivers side. Then you can disconnect the part of the connector hard mounted by the long black rod connected to the transmission case.

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You take the shifter out through the top. You could take it out through the bottom if you removed the driveshaft but I was using two jack stands, so I opted not to.

Its out! wOOt :

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[Towelly]

At this point its all about sealing stuff up. MGW give you plenty of dynamat so you can go crazy here if you want to. I covered what I though was neccesary and I have a bunch left.

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After this its gets really easy. Just feed the MGW shifter main body through the shifter whole with the back end going in first. Then you re-use the 8mm nuts on the studs at the rear of the shifter to get it nice and tight and in position. You then connect the stabylizer bar of the MGW to the transmission where the factory one used to be. But the thing is with the MGW the back of the shifter isn't a solid mount. It lets the bottom of the shifter move with the transmission so you don't have the "invisible" 3rd gear condition. Then you re-attach everything the same way it came out. I really didn't have any trouble installing the shifter and it only took me about 1.5 hours. It would have takin' me at least two if I were to stop and take all the pictures I wanted to.

Finished Product:

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[Towelly]

If you have any questions or picture request let me know. I should have plenty of time this week to do whatever. Over all I would give this install a difficulty rating of about a 3 out of 10. It was very easy and pretty straight forward. The only thing I got stopped up on was taking the factory shifter out through the top. It does take some finess.

Jake

 

[gashog]

Nice pics! How does the shifter feel compared to stock? I ended up dynamatting the **** out of my console too because with the steeda a LOT of noise came up through through there. I thought I was cool and came up with that idea on my own, but I guess MGW beat me to it.

 

[Towelly]

I have the throw set to 7 turns out (Max is 10). The shifter is just notchy enough to know you've got it in gear, but not so much that its a task to get into any given gear. I don't think it is possible to miss third with this shifter as it naturally goes right into third when you press staight up from second. As you can see I also got the Classic Shifter assembly two which I feel added to the solid feel of the shifter. Also, it looks fantastic. It is night and day as compared to stock and worth every penny in my opinion.