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I forgot about the agonizing hours I spent under my car last Friday putting in a new drivershaft, among other things. Why is the rear u-joint always the bad one? On half a dozen bad ones I've seen, the rear was to blame for them all. They get sticky or almost completely seize up, resulting in a wobble when accelerating through 25-30 MPH. Yes, the guibo was bad, no the center bearing looked perfectly fine. I had the same thing on my 85 535 I got when I was 18.
But I digress. When I removed the driveshaft, I found that the stock shifter mount on the rear of the aluminum console wasn't hooked onto its bracket properly, hence the slop. Oh well. I replaced the shift lever with the UUC Street Evo with adjustable lever height and cartridge bearings. I set it to full height, because I hate short shifter height. It could still be 1-2" higher for my taste. I also used the Delrin carrier bushings. Total cost including shipping from Turner was just over $250. Not bad. I also replaced the selector shaft knuckle and selector rod while I was at it, and installed a new foam spacer between the selector shaft and knuckle.
So how's the feel? Well, it's really hard to shift, and really short. The UUC shifter is a work of art, but its lower section from the ball to the joint is about 5X longer than stock. Did I get the Competition by mistake? Maybe, but I don't think so.
I have another problem--SOME RETARD BROKE THE TRANNY FILL PLUG!! There should be a 14 or 17mm head sticking out of it, but there's just a stupid sheared-off face staring at me. There's about 1/8" of plug to grab onto with a big pliers, so I'll have to try that when I get a chance. If I have to remove the damn catalyst to get enough clearance, I'M JUST GOING TO SNAP. Well, not really, but I am pissed. If I have to remove the transmission just to remove that plug, that's when I'll really lose it. Turn a 1/2 hour job into a 1/2 day job, that's my idea of a vacation day! Maybe I can fill it from the reverse-light switch hole.
So the reason I'm still undecided is that I have to change the tranny oil, first. Redline has smoothed out the shifts on my 170k-mile-old M3 tranny, so I figured it could do the same for my M5. It's worked beautifully in every transmission I've put it in.
You can actually hear the shift fork scraping the shifter ring when you lean on the knob. Weird! I thought something was wrong at first. This is probably because of the solid design of the shifter and the noise-transmitting cartridge bearings. I hope the Redline will quiet some of the noise. I have a feeling that it's filled with ATF, and MTL seems to be thicker.
Anyway, the jury is still out on this one. I'll attempt to change the trans oil, then we'll see.
James
james_535@yahoo.com
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