BMW E46 Project Car Gets a Shifter Rebuild
It’s time to fix this mess of a shifter.
With the exhaust and driveshaft out of the way, I finally had access to the beginning point of my restomod intentions: the shift assembly. The shifter in this car was beyond beat when I initially bought it. Gear engagement was vague, and the shifter itself was very floppy. I had a few nervous moments where what I thought was 5th gear ended up being 3rd. Not good for the track, and not good ever, really. So, hopefully the ECS Tuning shift rebuild kit would work some magic here. All of the bushings and components in the shift assembly had over 200,000 miles of deterioration working against them. So, new bushings and replacement parts all around could only do good.
Removing the shift assembly is a pain in the butt. Up top, the center console is removed, and then the shift knob, boot, and insulator are yanked off. I mean this literally, BMW shift knobs are press fit, they have to be yanked off.
[Pro Tip: Put the car in 2nd, or 4th gear and pull towards the back of the car. Don’t pull towards yourself, otherwise you will get a black eye when you hit yourself in the face after the knob comes off. It’s not a good look.]
With the shift knob, leather-like boot and foam insulator removed, the shifter itself is now visible. It sits in a white plastic cup. To remove it, twist the shifter counter-clockwise until it “clicks” and then gently pull up. The shifter is now free to be removed.
With the shifter out of the way, it’s time to get back under the car, and get even more dirty. On the tail end of the shift assembly (Pictured on the left above) is the locator dowel. Use two flat head screwdrivers, pinch it until it loosens off the shift assembly and then give it a hearty thwack with a hammer, or rubber mallet. It will come off without too much persuasion.
Alright, looking back at the remaining shift assembly pieces, there are two arms, the big upper piece, and the shorter, lower piece. That little guy, the shift selector rod, is our next focus. Interestingly, it’s held in only by C-clips on either end. Why BMW doesn’t use a nut and bolt here is beyond me. Anyway, bust out the pliers and remove the C-clips. The shift selector rod is now free.
We’re almost done, and the full shift assembly is almost out!
The only hiccup is that the last part is the hardest. The shifter rod extends about 6-inches beyond where the selector rod ends. Now, you can’t tell that in the image above, because the visibility back there is basically nil. The transmission hugs up tight against the body of the car, so what you see in the picture is what I can see when working on the car.
And, again, instead of using a nut and bolt, BMW, in their infinite wisdom, secures the shifter to the transmission via clip. This clip is hated by BMW enthusiasts far and wide. They call it the bitch clip for good reason. It is oddly shaped, unusually fragile, and, when installed correctly, sits nearly flush against the top of the transmission. And, with next to no visibility of the area in which it resides, you can imagine the frustration of even finding said clip through two decades of grime, let alone removing it.
Removing this one clip took nearly two hours. My swearing vocabulary was highly challenged in this endeavor. After almost two hours of fiddling around with picks, and various screwdrivers, I was able to loosen the clip, and flip it upwards, freeing the shift assembly from the transmission. Sorry, no Pro Tip here, this job flat out sucks without pulling the transmission from the car. Oh well, it’s free!
Move on to the next page to read about the conclusion of the shifter rebuild process!
