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Shelby GT350/350R Shifter Buzz Rattle Repair Solution PLEASE READ

MustangCollector

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Mods please make this a STICKY thread as this will help owners correct this annoying issue:


As most of us have been noticing the buzzing rattling is simply annoying all day long. I posted about this and from the photos posted of the shifter assembly off the car and responses I took the time to really figure this out. As you may know once I focus on something I do whatever it takes to solve it and have a good result, hence my crazy suspension testing and everything else I do with all of my cars.

So the noise is coming specifically from the pull up mechanism and the components in the system. The OEM foam wedge in the spring to me is kinda useless and doesn’t make sense why FORD didn’t just do what I figured out and sleeve the shaft to dampen the metal spring to shaft contact.

See photos in order. First remove the shift knob, mine did not come off at all, I used my soft jaw vise grips but it still ruined the leather which forced me to repair it and wrap in Alcantara to match the steering wheel, I am glad this happened because I then did the console and a few other pieces while I was at it. I have just been so busy past few months to focus on getting this done and I was in my zone yesterday.

1: Remove Knob carefully
2: Pull up to remove the shifter bezel, it’s a bitch and you can cut yourself so be careful, my trick is to use a heat gun to warm up the area where the clips are nice and warm and lift up in the front and rear and it pops up with no effort
3. Remove the shaft O ring up top
4. Remove the rubber isolator on the top of the spring carefully, place this aside.
5. Use a needle nose vise-grip to push the spring down so you can get the drift pin out. Use a small punch and hammer and carefully get the pin out to reuse.
6. Discard the stupid foam and clean the shaft of all grease with solvent.
7. Since the noise comes from the spring and plastic collar my goal was to isolate the spring against the shaft better. You can not use foam, rubber tubing etc. but you can use what I did, double wall heat shrink. It took me 4 tries before I found the shrink in my bin that was the right thickness that would allow the spring to install over it.The shrink i used also has special adhesive inside for better adhesion.
8. After the heat shrink cools you can quench it with a wet rag apply some grease over it to slip the spring over it, use the vise-grip to hold spring down and reinstall the pin. Use a good poly grease that is safe for rubber bushings etc.
9. Reinstall the rubber isolator on top of spring and drift pin.
10. I discarded the white plastic collar and I then took a rubber bushing, sliced it in half to also isolate and dampen the knob install against the plastic retainer.
11. The plastic retainer locks into the shifter lever housing, it doesn’t lock in tight if you wiggle it you can hear the plastic make noise. I placed a very thin O Ring i had in my O ring bin inside the shifter stalk mount then I applied 3M Window-weld strip caulk all around the inside cavity where the pull up piece drops into.
12. Warm up the strip calk so it becomes pliable.
13. Push the collar and boot on and twist left to right so the 3M caulk settles.
14, Grab a 22MM socket and soft hammer and tap the collar on, with the O Ring in the base and 3M caulk you need to do this otherwise it wont lock in.

Results, no more noise, shifter pull up is smoother and does not slide up as much which does not affect Reverse Engagement one bit and this just works. Now I welcome you guys to take the time and do your cars, hope you can find the right materials but you should be able to figure it out, the trickiest part is finding the right heat-shrink for the shaft because you want the tolerance to be tight but just enough to slide up and down. The knob and console covering was a bitch to do and its not for any DIY unless you have extensive upholstery experience and lots of patience and the right tools and prep. I also dampened the entire center console and cupholder assembly from below the surface with dynamat extreme and dynapad and jute. now if you knock on my console it feels like a piece of solid wood, not cheap anymore.

Hope this helps you guys out

Enjoy!!!
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OP
OP

MustangCollector

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You can only polish a turd so much.
pretty ignorant response to a proven solution that works and cost under $10 in materials and 15 min of time. I guess you feel your better off spending $500 on a shifter and hours to put it in for this? there is nothing wrong with the GT350 shifters engagement or feel at all, anyone that thinks so is nuts if you ask me. Ford never spent the time and money engineering this car to be quiet, refined and luxurious but some of us prefer to not have noises when some of us are coming from cars that were 2 to 3 times the price of the GT350. it depends on your standard and what you desire. Hope this thread helps others.
 

Epiphany

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I like to disassemble things.
1- You missed the intended context.
2- I never mentioned a $500 shifter solution, you did.
3- The "engagement" is weak at best. Just ask those that have tossed this shifter.

Just a suggestion...all you had to do was to supply the size of the heat shrink and say where you got it for anyone interested in doing this. I laud you for your efforts however.
 

Tomster

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1- You missed the intended context.
2- I never mentioned a $500 shifter solution, you did.
3- The "engagement" is weak at best. Just ask those that have tossed this shifter.

Just a suggestion...all you had to do was to supply the size of the heat shrink and say where you got it for anyone interested in doing this. I laud you for your efforts however.
Yea, what he said :thumbsup:
 

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TaraFirma

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[MENTION=10530]MustangCollector[/MENTION],
Do you have a write up on the center console covering, or at least a place to purchase the alcantra, color etc?
 

GTthree50

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All the shifter stuff aside, the console looks very good. I've been wanting to do exactly that to improve upon the cheap feel of the plastic. Nice write-up and inventiveness to solve your particular rattle.
 

cking

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congrats on fix, and nice console cover job, but factory shifter is crap. I also think the center console and door armrest area are ugly plastic globs. Mine are gone working on replacements. Got a nice Italian cowhide in distressed burgundy and some yards of black boucle mohair. I hope to give the interior some class to go with incredible looks of the exterior and best Mustang road car Ford ever built.
 

J_Maher_AMG

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1- You missed the intended context.
2- I never mentioned a $500 shifter solution, you did.
3- The "engagement" is weak at best. Just ask those that have tossed this shifter.

Just a suggestion...all you had to do was to supply the size of the heat shrink and say where you got it for anyone interested in doing this. I laud you for your efforts however.
I now have the MGW unit courtesy of my friend Scott who is no longer with us here, and while it is a tremendous piece of kit, I believe saying the stock shifter is weak or poor is a disservice.

Of course when you are used to using a fully solid, cnc machined shifter that has no real rubber or plastic points it is going to feel superior, but the OEM shifter is one of the best OEM shifter's to be put in any manual car in the last decade, and many reviews have stated this as well.

I was perfectly happy with the OEM shifter, and am happier now that I am rowing an MGW, but I would not consider it a necessary mod by any stretch of the imagination. If I were heavily tracking the car I imagine the wear/tear on the OEM unit would start to become annoying quickly (i.e Track Attack cars), and in that case I think the MGW would be a must have purely for longevity purposes.

OP I think your write up is well laid out and certainly will help others whom have had issues like yours. Cheap, easy DIY mods that WORK are always welcome IMO, and if you are someone who is perfectly content with the stock shifter setup, I think this is a fantastic option if you are having some minor noise issues.
 

Epiphany

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...the OEM shifter is one of the best OEM shifter's to be put in any manual car in the last decade, and many reviews have stated this as well.
Good God it's horrible. Ford was able to pull the wool over quite a few eyes. Like everything else, the devil lies in the details. I broke down the OEM shifter, component by component as soon as it was available as a Ford Service part. You can find the writeups I've done on it if you look. It is a TR6060 Camaro shifter at heart and as such suffers from the same maladies. Once you learn more of it's design and construction you realize that it falls short by quite a bit. Feel may suffice when new but as time passes it will degrade with increased slop and bind. Many have had issues when new.

The reverse collar, spring, and foam are a horrible design. They served well to meet the study group that was looking for a "light" mechanism but it is far from robust and as such, fodder for threads such as this one.

The pendulum linkage design (in essence) tries to swing the linkage into position, a non-linear architectural flaw. That is the best part of the MGW what with it's single axis linkage, a real linear linkage.
 

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J_Maher_AMG

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Good God it's horrible. Ford was able to pull the wool over quite a few eyes. Like everything else, the devil lies in the details. I broke down the OEM shifter, component by component as soon as it was available as a Ford Service part. You can find the writeups I've done on it if you look. It is a TR6060 Camaro shifter at heart and as such suffers from the same maladies. Once you learn more of it's design and construction you realize that it falls short by quite a bit. Feel may suffice when new but as time passes it will degrade with increased slop and bind. Many have had issues when new.

The reverse collar, spring, and foam are a horrible design. They served well to meet the study group that was looking for a "light" mechanism but it is far from robust and as such, fodder for threads such as this one.

The pendulum linkage design (in essence) tries to swing the linkage into position, a non-linear architectural flaw. That is the best part of the MGW what with it's single axis linkage, a real linear linkage.
I imagine with hard abuse yes it would certainly degrade quite quickly, just like the Track Attack cars that did certainly feel terrible with low mileage. But there are also many users on here with upwards of 20,000 miles and no reported issues of the shifter feeling like crap or binding. It would be like saying our IRS is garbage because there are rubber bushings that will wear and get sloppy over time as opposed to solid metal or poly counterparts.

It may not be the best design, but to say its horrible is exaggerating IMO. Horrible compared to what? Compared to the MGW, any OEM shifter unit is going to appear horrible. I think you are just so accustomed to these high quality units that the idea of utilizing these compromised OEM systems are now simply intolerable to you, which I could see happening with prolonged exposure to such wonderful pieces.

I wholeheartedly agree with the MGW being a fantastic piece and better in literally every single way. But I do think you are being a little hard on the OEM system, and after using these MGW units for so long, no other unit would be adequate at this point for you.
 

cking

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I haven't sampled many car shifters, mostly trucks. The mustang shifter reminded me of a old air cooled VW Bus, vague , spongy and just made to wear out. For regular driving you could learn to get where you wanted to go, but when you tried to speed up it just wouldn't have it. Plus it felt like if I actually get on it, it would break.

First I thought it was me, maybe a sign of getting old, so I watched a bunch of posted videos of people on track days. Hah, nobody could make that thing speed up, when I did find video of somebody handling the shifts with fluid and speed the credits showed MGW.

So I'm voting against trying to sell the OEM as other than awh ok.
 

Epiphany

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I imagine with hard abuse yes it would certainly degrade quite quickly, just like the Track Attack cars that did certainly feel terrible with low mileage. But there are also many users on here with upwards of 20,000 miles and no reported issues of the shifter feeling like crap or binding. It would be like saying our IRS is garbage because there are rubber bushings that will wear and get sloppy over time as opposed to solid metal or poly counterparts.

It may not be the best design, but to say its horrible is exaggerating IMO. Horrible compared to what? Compared to the MGW, any OEM shifter unit is going to appear horrible. I think you are just so accustomed to these high quality units that the idea of utilizing these compromised OEM systems are now simply intolerable to you, which I could see happening with prolonged exposure to such wonderful pieces.

I wholeheartedly agree with the MGW being a fantastic piece and better in literally every single way. But I do think you are being a little hard on the OEM system, and after using these MGW units for so long, no other unit would be adequate at this point for you.
The IRS analogy doesn't work. The IRS bushings take a set or cold flow as time passes but the support/cradle design isn't one of a moving, articulating linkage. The chassis and cradle are static for the most part with minimal deflection.

You stated that "the OEM shifter is one of the best OEM shifter's to be put in any manual car in the last decade" which I find fault with. I'm well versed on various OEM designs, component by component, and this one is minimalist with a side of poor materials selection and design. As I stated, it was pilfered directly from Chevrolet's Camaro. If you studied that design and how it wore you'd see where and how weak it is.

I'm hard on this shifter in particular because I recognize it is a very low-cost, weak design. Ford spent quite a bit of effort and time working with Tremec to ensure they had a transmission that could shift well at high rpm (something the shifter in the last GT500 with it's TR6060 was horrible at) and that would be a good match for the engine's unique characteristics. Instead of engineering a commensurate shift linkage Ford chose to save money and didn't give you their best. Normally, not a problem. But when you see how weak it is in concert with flawed design issues correlating directly into owner/warranty issues, you can have nothing but disdain for the path Ford chose here - and that has nothing to do with MGW. Ford could have done better, for little cost. They chose not to.
 

J_Maher_AMG

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The IRS analogy doesn't work. The IRS bushings take a set or cold flow as time passes but the support/cradle design isn't one of a moving, articulating linkage. The chassis and cradle are static for the most part with minimal deflection.

You stated that "the OEM shifter is one of the best OEM shifter's to be put in any manual car in the last decade" which I find fault with. I'm well versed on various OEM designs, component by component, and this one is minimalist with a side of poor materials selection and design. As I stated, it was pilfered directly from Chevrolet's Camaro. If you studied that design and how it wore you'd see where and how weak it is.

I'm hard on this shifter in particular because I recognize it is a very low-cost, weak design. Ford spent quite a bit of effort and time working with Tremec to ensure they had a transmission that could shift well at high rpm (something the shifter in the last GT500 with it's TR6060 was horrible at) and that would be a good match for the engine's unique characteristics. Instead of engineering a commensurate shift linkage Ford chose to save money and didn't give you their best. Normally, not a problem. But when you see how weak it is in concert with flawed design issues correlating directly into owner/warranty issues, you can have nothing but disdain for the path Ford chose here - and that has nothing to do with MGW. Ford could have done better, for little cost. They chose not to.
I guess it all depends on your perspective. The majority don't seem to have an issue with how the OEM setup feels, and if you can point to a single review where someone stated that it felt like crap, I'll eat my words.

I'm not however, disagreeing with your assessment regarding the design or its quality. No doubt it is a cheap design, and I for one am VERY happy with my MGW unit and would never go back to stock, but if we look at many facets of the car we could probably come to the same conclusion of "why didn't they just do X instead for a little more money?" but to get to that level we need would be talking about a GT3 and it's associated price tag :p

Obviously you have fairly high expectations based on your experiences, which is perfectly fine, but does not mirror the opinions/thoughts of the majority of the public who have driven 350's. Could be a lot worse, GM could have never dealt with ignition switch issues for something like $0.17 per vehicle and chose not too to save a few bucks LOL at least we only have to deal with Potential buzzing/slop after a lot of use and it isn't life threatening
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