Reply to "Five modifications NOT to do to your Pantera"

Shifter:

Some people recommend taking out the spring in the gear shifter, and after that the shifter feels more centered and direct. And they can be right; in some cases the shifter does indeed feel more centered and direct. But that’s because you’ve compensated for a problem instead of correcting it. Originally there’s the centering mechanism of the shifter, but there’s also a centering mechanism in the ZF. So originally there was about twice the centering force, but that is only true if the shifter rod is properly aligned. What often happens, I guess after years of use or after somebody has had the ZF or shifter replaced, is that the alignment is off. This means that there’s a centered area where the shifter alignment mechanism pulls to the right but the ZF alignment mechanism pulls to the left, or vice-versa. So it feels sloppy and there’s no centering force, or there is excessive resistance to movement.

If you remove the shifter centering mechanism in that situation, then of course you eliminate the sloppy feeling, and you think you’ve done something good (but you should be wondering why the factory put it in if taking it out improves shifter feel). But you end up with approximately half the shifter centering force compared to original, which is sometimes not enough to center the shifter, so you have to do it by hand.

What you should do is realign the shifter rod. Have the car in neutral, loosen the lock nut approximately at cylinder 8, let the shift lever and the ZF both center, and tighten the nut. Now you have a shifter with twice the centering power and no sloppy center, as the factory intended. Working As Designed!