[gahooligan]

I now have 95% of the original rattles fixed. It's not church mouse quiet and that trans still sounds like a load of rocks in the dryer but the rattles from the shifter and linkage have mostly been tamed.


The main rattle I found in the car side of the shifter is actually the lockout cable between the metal sides of the shifter handle! do yourself a favor, pull off the boot and wiggle the cable back and forth left to right as fast as you can. You hear that metallic slap noise, increase the vibration frequency by about 50-100 and that's the metallic rattle sound I had coming from the shifter itself.


How did I solve it? I tried two ways. One was to make a thin carpet sheath using automotive pyle carpet (like at autozone) around the cable with the friz on the outside. I never tested this completely but it will work and moves with the cable, don't see an issue if you have a scrap piece laying around. What I did do was extremely low tech! I spiraled pipe cleaners around the cable from end to end. Just start the wrap and then just spin it around the cable while you feed it on then slide it up the cable. It took two pipe cleaners. The fuzz acts as a cushion to soak up the vibrating cable and does not allow the hard cable sheath to slap against the metal and make the metallic rattle noise.


I also had the shifter lock me out of pressing the release button, several times. Like it was jammed. I could still manually pull the release through the boot. It would mysteriously clear itself by the next drive. The third time it did this I screwed around with it and I pressed on the button pretty hard and can only describe what I think I felt, as I did not remove the button to inspect.


What it felt like was a bushing with machine marks (spirals) being pushed into its hole. "zziiittt, zzzziittt" each increment I pressed it down. I can report after doing this, the button action is much more free and quick-acting on depression and return, with no more jams.


Any remaining rattles have also decreased and become lower in pitch. It is now a full 95% quieter that when originally installed.


The trans seems to get louder as it heats up and the shifter, while still precise, does not feel to have the "fluid resistance dampened feel" (lol) that it does when the trans is cold. I prefer the feel and noise level when the oil is cold. Maybe a trans oil change is in order now that the car has 3k miles. Maybe a change to a thicker or more stable at temperature oil.


I hope this helps someone. Please let me know if you find any of the things I did or if any of my homebrew fixes work for you.


Matt in GA