Which bushing to change?

[ej22t]

Hi people, I would like to change the bushing to my pervious stick, the stick now feel very very loose and it somehow made me have a wrong and worry downshift from 5th to 4th(somehow I get into 2nd but drop the clutch very slowly so I didn't damage my tranny).
I know there are some bushing should be time the replace.
I can't find any result though the forums for replace the bushing all I could found is replace the whole STi Shift linkage.
Does anybody know which bushing should I replace and where should I buy them?
Thanks for your help!

Ben

[entirelyturbo]

Okay, this is a lot, but bear with me, this thread is going to be the official thread for shifter bushing replacement on this board. It might even be worthy of stickyage...

Contrary to what anyone on here tells you, shifter bushing replacement is a VERY tedious and unnecessarily hard job on an AWD Subaru. One, because the car is old and the shifter pieces don't wanna budge, and two, because the transfer case on an AWD car gives you no room to do anything. I have a friend here locally with a 91 turbo, and he too says it is ridiculously hard. I had to walk him through it step by step almost.

But here's what you need to do:

First, get a Haynes manual, then you will at least have a picture diagram to match up with this. There are two bolts in the linkage underneath the car, one goes up and down, the other side to side. Chances are you have NO bushings left in the side-to-side bolt bracket. Now, ahead of this bolt, the last thing you see before it goes into the tranny, there are two roll pins that hold the joint that the side-to-side bracket bolts to. Try to remove the outer pin, the inner pin should come out with it. I really have no idea why SOA decided to put one inside another.

Since this assembly is so far up into the chassis, and you have a transmission in your way, you are gonna hafta homemake yourself a punch with an extension. Take a regular punch with a hexagonal end on it, then take a 10mm socket, I believe and put the punch in the socket. Now put an extension into the 10mm socket. Wrap a good amount of duct tape around the socket, making sure you hold all this together. But there's one more thing. You are never gonna be able to get this punch to stay on the lip of this roll pin, because it slightly protrudes from the joint. So, take another socket, that's about 7mm I think, and slide it over the punch. Why you're doing this, is because you're going to put the punch straight through the pin and the 7mm socket is going to line up with the lip of the pin. Now you have the proper tool to remove that sucker.

Hammer away at it, and don't be a baby. My motto is: use all the anger and rage you have for the stupidity of this procedure and take it all out on that pin. It will be very stubborn, and once you think you're finally going to break something, it should budge. Eventually, it will pop out of the top. But you're not done yet.

That joint is not just going to slide right off the bar. What you need to do now is get a tie-rod removal tool. It just happens to be the perfect size to fit behind that joint. There is a bolt on the transmission case directly below the back of this joint that serves as an excellent fulcrum for the leverage you're going to need to remove it. So once you have the fork up against the back of the joint and against the bolt on the case, start beating the hell out of the end of the tie-rod fork. This again is going to take some patience. However, I must warn you, guard your face. When that thing finally popped off, it clocked me right in the nose and left a nice bloody gash!

Now you can remove all the bolts and replace all the bushings. My friend with the 91 turbo did it, and I wish I had too: replace those stupid roll pins with a bolt and nut. Then if you ever have to do this again, it won't be as hard. Then just reassemble everything and you will be amazed at how much tighter your shifter is.

This is definitely not a half-hour job. I have the luxury of having a second car to drive, so I took my time with this. I only had my car on ramps, so I did all this on the floor, which made it that much harder. I think I spent about 4 or 5 straight hours fooling around with it (the car was out about a week), although it wouldn't take me that long now.

Good luck!

[ej22t]

Thanks Subyluvr2212 for your write up, one more questions, hows the feeling after you install the new bushing?
Are they gives you better feeing when shifting?
Do it worth to make a change?

Ben

[entirelyturbo]

No prob.

It is a night-and-day difference. Worth every bit of the work and more. I wouldn't want a short-throw now. It feels perfect to me. Gear engagement is indeed much more positive, and you can feel a lot more what's going on in there.

If any part of my write-up was unclear, feel free to ask, I'll clarify.

[aspect]

This is definatly something I'm going to do, as my side to side bushing is definatly gone (NO resistance whatsoever in the shifter...it practically sits at an angle). I am wondering, though, how I'd get a set of bushings? Should I just go to the dealership and ask for all the bushings on the linkage?

[mTk]

isn't that whay you use a roll pin punch that has a round part on the tip made specifically for roll pins?

MK

[free5ty1e]

I just took one look under my Scoobaru and I'm very upset.

Then I read this thread and I'm still upset.

Dag nabbit

OK lets see how long this takes me to do...

[free5ty1e]

Took me and my friend 3 hours total. We did NOT remove the roll pins, as we perceived incredible pain and suffering from this process - especially putting them back in.

Using a ratcheting 12mm wrench and a standard 12mm wrench we were able to remove (with much cursing and vowing revenge on SOA) the two nuts/bolts holding the vertical and horizontal portions of the linkage which contained the bushings. We removed the nut and bolt from the shifter (in the cab) and then proceeded to pull that entire rod out through the bottom. That made removing the sleeve and old bushings, as well as cleaning it all, much easier. However, the part attached to the transmission was the real pain in the ass.

The secret to making this all possible is to move the transmission! We brought a bottle jack under the car with us and placed it under the transmission bracket. Then we removed the 4 15mm bolts and the 2 18mm bolts (I believe those were the sizes) and dropped the tranny down onto the jack. We were able to maneuver it in there enough to replace the bushings and bolts and nuts (bring a prybar or a large screwdriver to move the tranny to the side), and once it was all back together we put the bracket back on. This job would have taken much less time if we had decided to move the transmission first instead of laying under the car for long periods of time and thinking. I would say, knowing the procedure now, this job could conceivably be performed in an hour and a half or so.

All in all, however, my opinion of SOA's engineering team has dropped irrevocably. I was very impressed with them until I had to replace my shifter bushings. I threw my neck out pretty bad lying under the car for that long on pavement but hey - the shifter feels 1000% better! And I hopefully should not have to do this again for another 10 years

[free5ty1e]

Admin - please to make this post sticky.

This is valuable information to anyone with a loose shifter... (which should be pretty much everyone with a 5MT since our cars are all 10+ years old)

[ej22t]

I did it months ago, I replace it from the WRX stock shifter with harder bushing from suspension energy. It gives a very good feeling and it do have a better then ever feeling too, but this think won't make it like a quick shifter since its a stock shifter from WRX.
Worth to do the change and it don't cost a lot if you could get it from Junkyark.

Ben

[free5ty1e]

zuh? Are you suggesting people go searching junkyards for WRX shifter bushings??

If they're built anything like the Legacy, it would be damn near impossible to remove the bushings in an environment like a junkyard. Especially one where the cars are stacked on top of one another. On top of that though - they're used, old bushings! They wouldn't even come out of the fittings without falling apart

I simply went to the Subaru dealer and ordered all 6 bushings. They were like $4 apiece. The 4 bushings on the shifter rod are all the same, and the 2 on the transmission rod are the different ones. More than likely you won't need to replace the ones in the actual shifter portion - as they haven't been exposed to the elements. But its a good idea to get all 6 bushings anyway on general principle.

Are you perhaps saying that we should order WRX shifter bushings from the dealer, or an aftermarket source, to replace worn/disintegrated Legacy bushings? I would imagine they're the same material - hard blue rubber. They just don't last 10 years exposed to the elements.

[Brat4by4]

No, he is saying to get a WRX shifter. This will have all new bushings everywhere, nothing to change. They can't be more than 2 years old.

I did the same thing. I got a used WRX shifter and replaced the big one with an Energy shifter bushing. Once it is installed I will have an almost unlimited sources for short shifters also, when that time comes.

[free5ty1e]

Oh, I see... didn't quite understand the post.

What differences are there in the shifters? It still sounds like it would be as much of, if not more of, a pain in the ass to replace than just the bushings.

[kastrix]

Nobody has taken pics have they?

[free5ty1e]

I would have taken pics but believe me I didn't want to stay under there any longer than I had to, I had already killed my neck doing this.

I dont think pics are necessary - lie under the car and have a friend move the shifter around and you'll see exactly what we're talking about. You'll probably begin cursing Subaru of America, as well. It's normal.

As for the bracket holding the transmission up, this should be fairly obvious - locate the shifter linkage and then realize what's in your way - thats it....