Len

Have had the MGW shifter for over a year and I love it but lately I've been getting a pretty loud rattle in both 2nd and 4th gears. I thought it was coming from underneath so I got under and made sure everything was tight. I did this twice and nothing was loose both times I checked. I changed the position of the shifter but that didn't fix it. My last resort, other than taking the shifter apart, was to remove the ball. When I bought the MGW I ordered it with the stock threaded shaft and put a Roush **** on it. I left the shaft bare - looks kinda industrial but I like it. The ball was on tight and the jam nut was tight against the ball. I removed both and noticed that the jam nut had noticeable play when unscrewing it. I reinstalled the ball without the jam nut and the sound was gone. Not only the rattle was gone but there must have been some ambient noise in the background because now the car is quieter than before. I reinstalled the **** with the jam nut and blue loctite and everything is fine. It's amazing how sound is generated and how it travels. Even though the jam nut was tight against the ball there must have been enough of a gap at the threads to generate the noise / vibration which sounded like it was coming from beneath the shifter, not at the ball. I guess having everything tight doesn't insure you won't have a rattle - you need something like loctite to fill the gap. So the rattle is gone and as an added bonus, I picked up an additional 7 HP at the rear wheels. That loctite is good stuff.

06GT

OK...

blbrchnk

I am having the same type of issue with my Hurst Billet and my thought was to take the ball and nut off this evening. This made me feel a little better that maybe that is all that is wrong. I checked under the car a couple of times as well and saw nothing wrong.

Len

It's worth a try. I was very surprised that a jam nut, which was as tight as it could be, could cause that much noise. Another interesting thing was that the noise sounded as if it were coming from an entirely different location. The loctite worked like a charm.

blbrchnk

Yeah mine sounds like it is coming from further down in the shifter unit, but like I said when I checked, everything is as tight as could be. Also when I put firm pressure on the jamb nut, the rattle stops.

NastyStang113

On a side note. I just had a nice little fix with my car... I thought I had a problem with my MGW for a while. I swapped the clutch out in my car to a Roush P51, OEM TOB and pressure plate, and resurfaced the stock flywheel (it was in great shape). I switched to the Royal Purple Syncromax transmission oil while it was out of the car. Well, after the swap the shifter was much more notchy than ever before and I could feel everything through the shifter. It sucked but it wasn't that big of a deal. However every so often when I came to a stop and the car was in 1st or 2nd gear, the shifter would get stuck and wouldn't come out of gear. It was stuck and took a lot of force to get it into neutral! I knew it wasn't anything with the parts because everything was in good shape. I knew it wasn't the installation because everything went together fine and it didn't happen all of the time. So, I decided to change the oil and went with Amsoil ATF and I'm amazed with my car again. It shifts like butter and feels just like stock again. It's amazing. Now I don't have any notchy feeling and I haven't had the shifter get stuck in 1st or 2nd since.

Len

I've always thought that Royal Purple was over hyped but I can't understand how it could cause a problem like that. Is it possible that when you put the Amsoil in, the linkage or shifter got readjusted? Here's some interesting reading about RP.
http://tinyurl.com/yhmtvum
http://tinyurl.com/yhpqncg

NastyStang113

No the shifter linkage wasn't touched. I will note that I have my shifter set so low in my MGW that I actually had to cut the shifter 'rod' to get it to clear. So this decreased leverage does make it harder to shift obviously. I'm not really sure though. I've driven cars with Royal Purple in their TR3650s and a MGW and it wasn't as notchy as mine and didn't have the problem that I had. So I really have no idea what happened. Maybe I got a bad batch of oil from RP. All I know is that it's completely fixed now and I actually enjoy driving my car again.

I really don't think RP is over-hyped. I've done tests myself (Blackstone) and RP was better than Mobil1. Mobil 1 used to be so much better than they are now which is sad. Mobil1 is the best oil that's widely available though without a doubt. I don't have any complaints about the Amsoil, can't wait to see what the tests say.

blbrchnk

Just FYI, I put some Blue Locktite on it this weekend and got rid of the rattle. For about a day, now it is back in full force. I am thinking about maybe some silicone on top of the jamb nut. Might try that out this week.