Miata Mailing List: July 1997, Message #274
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From: 	"Grant E. Keller" <grant.e.keller@boeing.com>

Subject: Re: To Tommy at PBC

Date: 	Tue, 8 Jul 1997 16:19:57 -0500



Sorry ahead of time, this is kind of long.



I had the same problem on my 90 A. I asked the collected wisdom for a

fix and got back some outstanding info. Skip Cannon and John Freas gave

me the best gouge and told me exactly how to correct the problem (thanks

guys!). Look up their responses on last months listing under "Console

gets very hot". 



They said that the boot might be cracked and that was a bit of an

understatement. When I looked I found the same thing you found. The only

thing left of the rubber boot was the metal attachment frame and a

little circle of rubber around the shifter itself. John advised me to

also replace the smaller boot below the big boot, so I ordered both at

the same time. This was a good thing, as the smaller boot had also

self-destructed. 



When I removed the smaller boot and pulled out the shifter, I ran into a

snag you should be aware of. At the base of the shifter (opposite the

Voodoo end) there is a white plastic ring with a thin metal shim that

snaps onto it. This shim had cracked into two pieces and I thought it

should be replaced too. The problem was that this was on the Fourth of

July and the dealer was closed. I had to put the shifter back together

so I could move Banshii back into the garage before the fireworks

started. I did a very dumb thing at that point when I installed the

smaller boot onto the shifter and reassembled the unit. This is a very

tight fit (John likens it to a … , well …, he told me to ask my wife,

and you don’t want to know what she told me. There ARE some things men

don’t need to know. Something about grabbing your lip and pulling it

over your head.) 



Anyway, when the boot finally snapped onto place, it really snapped onto

place. The next day I bought the part and dissembled the shifter. I

tried everything, but I could not get that little boot ( I called it

something else) to come off the shifter shaft. I finally had to cut it

off and go back to the dealer to get a new boot. The rest of the job was

easy, and I replaced the dirty tranny oil in the housing with 90cc of

fresh oil, minus the 3cc that I slopped out onto the shop rag wrapped

around the housing (good thing that shop rag. The last step was to

install the Voodoo knob, like John told me. That was the best part.



I thought the shifter was smooth before maintenance, but now it's like

silk. 



Oh yeah, the console stays nice and cool now.



Grant Keller and Banshii

90 A - deep purple with black Voodoo