shift bushings, buy or fabricate?
shift bushings, buy or fabricate?
http://mercedes-190.co.uk/topic/6528449/1/
has anyone here tried these brass bushings? are they a meaningful upgrade from OEM? (you have to scroll down a ways to see photos of the brass bits.)
my shifting seems kind of sloppy and given the difficulty of getting at both ends of the linkage rods, i'd be willing to have the bushings machined if they were as fabulous as represented in the british thread above.
Yes, those are the ones you want. There are other brass bushings you can get to go in the levers on the side of the trans. They should help some but the ones shown in the linked thread that go in the shifter are a problem area.
New stock replacements should be fine too, but they have durability issues. They stock bushings are essentially 2 metal sleeves with vulcanized rubber in between to provide some flex. The rubber comes apart over time.
I made my own out of 19mm delrin/acetal rod stock on my lathe. It probably didn't take me 20 minutes.
There will also be several other parts of the shifter that are worn that should be replaced. I found a rebuild parts list on 190rev.net for the 16v shifter, which is what I have. The parts were affordable.
What shifter do you have? I could point out the wear areas on a parts diagram if needed.
hi ray, thanks for chipping in. i have the stock 4-speed shifter on my 77 240D but no idea about the part number. i figure that if i redo this stuff it's one bushing at either end of the three levers (hopefully i can reuse the clips) plus, i think, one at either side of the sliding element in the shifter. i don't mind throwing a few dollars at the problem if i can get my hands on the right stuff (no lathe here!).
I ordered mine from rusty at buymbpart.biz but I cant find them anymore. he sent me a diagram of it so I could order them by part number
That's a different shifter than what those brass bushings were made for.
Here's the diagram
http://www.neoriginal.ru/cat/mb/part__1_.../26_015__2
Were I to guess, 20, 14 and 44 could stand replacement, but a teardown should be done first to identify worn parts.
well, you're right. i actually have the new bushing kit in hand, so i guess if i find mine are degraded then i can just have a machinist copy them. talk about some inaccessible parts of the car, though.... thanks for the tips.