Despite the rattle, I still have my Waffenschmiede short shifter in. I've thought about replacing it with the standard one again, just never got around to it.

I've been noticing some issues lately with not being able to get into 1st or reverse sometimes. It's going in for a service today, so I thought I'd get them to have a quick check and suggest what it might be - I was thinking synchro's or something. Due to the rattle, I figured it'd be a good idea to swap the shifter back, rather than explaining that the rattle isn't related to the problem.

I pulled the shifter out and made an interesting discovery. There are two wee pins on either side of the pivot for the shifter which keep it in place. These two pins screw back into the aluminium frame. However, these pins had rattled themselves loose, to the point they were pushing right up against the side of the shifter - I couldn't even disassemble it because they were jammed up tight against it. I wound these right back and reassembled it, and it feels like a whole new gearbox now - I obviously haven't noticed it getting progressively worse.

I'll need to pop some lock tite or glue or something on to hold the pins tight now, but just thought I'd let you guys know as some of you might want to try the same trick.

The other thing I noticed while I was in there, is that there is some play between the shifter and the pins, which may be the cause of the rattle. It's not really noticeable in neutral, which would be why I never noticed it before, but pop it in 1st and you can feel just a little bit of movement. I'd love to try some wee plastic rings around the pins and see what that does. Someone with a bit more skills/time/etc than me might be able to figure out a better solution that fixes both of these problems?

edit: It's not going into 1st/reverse smoothly again - I doubt the pins have worked themselves loose that quickly, so it's obviously something else. Still, it feels smoother changing other than that!

Do you have any play in the shaft on yours? Where the two halves screw together on mine it seems the thread hasn't been cut properly & theres a few mm of play even when done up as tight as it will go & with loctite.
I've greased up the lower half of the shifter & it made it much smoother & quieter but the remaining rattle is in the shaft.
Any ideas if an engineering shop could maybe recut the thread?

I don't seem to have any play in the threadon mine. Mine only starts to ratlle above 6000rpm, and since most of my driving is well below that I decided I can live with it, given that I love the feel of it. If anyone finds the solution to the rattle please do post it up, though.

I don't have any play in that thread. I was thinking about finding a wee length of pipe I can pop over the bottom half of the shifter - that way I can still safely drive, but also take the pipe off and give it assholes - see if it still rattles with half the shifter missing...

i got one of these shifter kits off a dude on trademe, the shift is quite abit shorter i must say!, i have no issues getting into gear or anything like that, it just has that annoying rattle when you thrash it, the thread on my lever was quite sloppy and loose so i just put thread tape around it and it cut the noise down by half but there is still a rattle. i think it might be the alloy spacer that sits in the place of the old shifter vibrating around. so i might get a nylon one made up and see if that makes a difference. i also think they have the tendency to rattle because they are quite weighted for faster shifting. :skid:

It's not the alloy spacer - I ran some tape around mine so it fits tightly, still rattles. Hint: don't run tape around it, because when you get sick of it and want to swap the stocker back in you'll find the alloy ring firmly stuck.

ive also noticed that the lever actually has a little bit of play where the ball pivoting bit sits its fingered nylon bush. maybe thats just from it wearing as it wasnt greased up but does anyone else have that issue as i think thats why mine rattles. i noticed that it has a o ring at the top of it so i might just file a grove around the fingers at the bottom of the bush and put a o ring around it to clamp the fingers a bit tighter againts the ball when its in place to take out the play it has and see if that does the trick to stop the rattle. :D

We'll I've finally fixed mine :D
I brought Muzza's old TRD shifter & sold the rubbish Waffenschmiede :P
Not very helpful to you guys soldiering on with them but if the opportunity arises to purchase a TRD one jump on it. They're 100% better. There's no noise what so ever from them & it only cost me $50 once I'd sold the Waffenschmiede to upgrade.

i use to use a quick shifter in my race car ,but found it ends up damaging the syncros as it shifts 2 quick for the box to handle .i went back to the std shifter and my changes are .5 of a second slower but no missed shifts and no buzzing the motor either ,they are a waste of time unless you have a dog box

That's exactly why I sold my TRD short shift kit and went back to standard. After being told by a few people that the shift is designed to give the syncro's time to line up whereas the short shift is really just trying to force them to line up causing wear.
To use a short shift without issues, more work on the internals of the gearbox really needs to be done unless you shift slow, but that just negates having the short shift in the first place.

Double clutching & RedLine MT90 saves synchros. Plenty of people still manage to screw them with the standard shifter.
Personally it's not about changing gear quicker it's about not feeling like you're driving a truck. I had a TRD shifter in my last car of 5 years so when I jumped in the Altezza it felt like a truck to me. Funnily enough I learnt to double clutch whilst driving trucks :lol: