mini love - part 41

I took many photos of the shifter so one can see the details where the vendor's site is very lacking.

the cable on the side is for the reverse gear lockout mechanism

the bottom cover for the cable cassette

the two gear shift cable entry points - there are these two welded on metal rings that adds the thickness trying to match that of the plastic factory cable cassette; my immediate thought is the dimensions better be very close

the burly spring is for the lateral centering, which augment that inside the Mini's gearbox; I have read about one owner thinks it is unnecessarily too strong

the hex bolt that one can align the centering spring to that in the Getrag gearbox

It is D-day. One fine day that the sun would be out late in the day and forecasted to reach upper 50s. Reheating my home made pizza would save a lot of time to get ready for the work ahead.

I planned to swap out the worn tires with the set of summer performance wheels, and to begin the installation of the shifter. These all to be done while the Mini is up on jack stands. Installing the long shifter will be a lot of labour.

I let the interior warmed up by the solar gain so not to break any brittle plastic parts; hence I started working under the car first.

the center exhaust pipe and the center support is removed; next is to remove the long heat shield

one of the best ideas that I have is to mark the original location of the long heat shield so I can put it back exactly how it was from the factory

I was extremely careful not to damage any of the heat shields; the small one at the front on driver side also needed to be removed as it overlaps the long one

taking extreme care with the oxygen sensor harness

now starting to remove the center floor console

plying this switch panel out is always very challenging not to mar the plastic trim panel or the console; I refer to photo from the past to see where the retaining features are

one lesson I learnt is you never take too many photos on this kind of projects

removing this trim piece is very counter-intuitive as you have to fold, squeeze and bend the soft plastic so it will clear the odd space you have to remove it

I actually skip a lot of photos as I already have them from last time I removed the console

now the mostly plastic factory shifter is exposed ready to be lowered

to accommodate the new long shifter this center console will needed to be extensively cut up; my concern is its structure integrity after the cut

there are 4 Torx bolts securing the entire shifter to the exhaust tunnel

to remove the white plastic cover one must first lower the shifter down so you can carefully unclip the retaining barbs

I chose to tackle this project only when the ambient temperature is warm enough so the plastic parts are not brittle

the trick to unclipping the countless barbs is to tackle them one by one and use tooth picks to keep the barbs unlocked while you go on and attack the next one; I managed not to break any with this little trick

next is to slide out the spring sheet steel U-clips locking the cable jackets to the cassette; it requires considerable force to pop the ball joints at the end of the cable and there is no room for one to apply force while crawling under the car but I managed with a few tricks; the red arrow is a gasket

After a lot of work the shifter is mounted and the shifting cables connected, but there is still a lot for work ahead.

I had a hard time figuring out the real positions of the 6 forward gears and especially the reverse. Something just seem so wrong. When I move the shifter to the left I can shift forward which is where the reverse gear is located. However, strangely I can shift backward which there should be no gear. I was stumped.