Short Shifter

I don't know if anyone makes a shorter shift rod lever.
Auger parts makes a special shift knob out of black Delrin.
The knob replaces the stock Pantera shift knob and in effect shortens the lever about 1-3/4" if I'm not mistaken.
It might not sound like a lot but the difference is dramatic.
The added benefit is that the original rod remains original.

He is a member of this forum and goes by the name of McMan. The logo is a blond todle on a toy push car.

I would recomend that you contact him first.
He has his own web page. That you are going to need to google or other to find.

I won't be remembering it for awhile this morning. Probably after the second or third cup of coffee, that portion of brain function will kick in for me. Probably.

Check it out. You won't be sorry.

I wish Christmas would be done. These freakin' raindeer keep messing all over the place. They must be mistaken my red Pantera for the freakin' slay. What a mess.

quote:

I don't mean a shortened shift rod, I mean a shorter throw.

The ZF is what it is. Perhaps the new Quaife transaxle is a shorter throw, but what is it priced at? $17,000???

Quella shortened my shiftrod when restoring it for a previous owner. I like it a lot, others says it feels weird.

Pacman's shifter knob seems to give a similar effect much easier.

Larry

quote:

The ZF is what it is. Perhaps the new Quaife transaxle is a shorter throw, but what is it priced at? $17,000???

I understood the new ZFQ was priced at $10,995 which isn't that much different than buying an off the shelf RBT 5spd ZF. It was aimed at the GT40 guys (but I understand it can be flipped to use in a Pantera) and compares to buying a USED ZF and then $3K to flip it for use in a GT40.

The GT5 has a shortened shift rod and feels great.

?

quote:

Originally posted by RobertVegas:
Is it possible to get a short shifter for the ZF? I don't mean a shortened shift rod, I mean a shorter throw.

I looked in the archive and could only find info on shortened shift rods.

R.

I toyed with the idea of a remote shifter using microswitches and solenoids and electrical activated hydralic cylinders. But it would not be cheap and would take a lot of patience debugging. At the end of the day you still won't be able to shift faster.

Thanks for the input everyone.

I will start with the shorter shift knob and see if that helps the feel. This isn't a serious issue, I was just curious. My other cars have nice, tight, short shifts and I like that feeling.

I drive the Pantera every day now and have been doing it long enough that I occasionally try to leave the line in second gear in my other cars. Oops.

R.

quote:

Originally posted by DeTom:


I toyed with the idea of a remote shifter using microswitches and solenoids and electrical activated hydralic cylinders. But it would not be cheap and would take a lot of patience debugging. At the end of the day you still won't be able to shift faster.

I guess im not the only one dreaming about this.

Blaine

Blaine, what I was thinking was using four micro switches in the shift gate. A mear four switches would allow you to accurately determine which gear was selcted for the acuation of the remote shifter mecanism. I was thinking a hydraulic ram for the back and forth motion on the selector shaft inside the shifter box and two solenoids for the side to side positioning. Ffree resting would always be neutral position.
This way you could completely eliminate the shift linkage and all its associated weight and frustration.

Every Pantera I have driven had a notchy feel to the shift mechanism. Would that cause a problem?

Sort of what I was thinking but I was researching the possibilities if a high power electric solenoid for the shifting. This way I could use a circuit to measure amperage which in turn could control a feedback circuit in the shifter box. This would give you an idea of whether the shifter was actually in gear or not rather than guessing. The hard part is finding a powerful enough solenoid.

Blaine

quote:

The hard part is finding a powerful enough solenoid.

There is more to it than that. Ford found out that the EMP off of the spark plug wires was enough to weaken a solenoid to half strength at unpredictable times. Also heat takes its toll on solenoids too.

Back to the old drawing board.

quote:

Originally posted by PanteraTurbo:
Back to the old drawing board.

Not to worry Tim, Hydraulics works good enough for your brakes and your clutch. It should work plenty good for your shifter. You can still use solenoids for plungers to activate the hydralics and can locate them away from engine heat and EMF.

The problem for my is finding a way to run a hydraulic pump. I suppose it could be electric as the shift mechanism would be pretty low flow. Could also still use some sort of resistance sensors mounted to the transaxle for a feedback circuit. It could happen. Unfortunately this project is so far down on the TO DO list that I dont see it happening
anytime soon. My buddy and I are currently in the brainstorming stages of a CDI ignition setup. My apologies for the thread hijacking.

Blaine

I had a thought and like you Blaine it is so far down the list...well I thought that if you increased the ball size on the end of the shifter rod by say 25% in the fore and aft axis, and left the diameter the same on the sides of the shift rod ( The shift gates would have to be reduced so has not to overstroke the ZF) That this could create a short throw shifter and not have to change anything dealing with the rods or levers inside of the shifter.
The actual length of the shifter would not change, also I thought that with a newly designed shift gate, and just the shifter handle this could be done very easily. Gear to gear changes would be reduced but side to side travel would not be altered.
Does this sound feasible?
Jeff

Why not use stepper motors to control the tranny. Use 1 for rotation and another for forward/backward movement. You could run them both off a program stored in a easily programed chip like the BS2 (Basic Stamp).

You would need to add some sort of feedback loop to make sure the motors didn't overstep.

For the shifter you could make some sort of "NEW" style shifter plate. In each gate attach brush's (or some other contact type) to make an electrical contact to tell the chip what gear has been selected.

The benefit of something like this is that you could but in some new shifter stops and really turn it into a short shifter, plus easily add on paddle shifters.

Instead of brushes you could graft a couple of potentiometers to the shifter (same as a computer joystick works). This way would be harder to retrofit, but I think this is probably the better idea.

I hope thats not too long winded, I have been thinking about the best way to do this for awhile as well.

But the fundamental design of the ZF will remain the same, I fail to see what you accomplish here

Surely the shift times are going to be about equivalent to a manual shift as your paddle 'auto' system still converts that to a mechanical gear selection?

So what's your goal, to have an automatic Pantera? Maybe just get a Porsche Tiptronic transaxle and adapt into the Pantera? Then again maybe it's time to just get the Porsche.....

quote:

well I thought that if you increased the ball size on the end of the shifter rod by say 25% in the fore and aft axis, and left the diameter the same on the sides of the shift rod

Probably won't work. It's still the same movement length fore and aft based on the length of the shifter. A bigger ball doesn't change the centerline. The only thing that would work is to change the effective length of the shifter rod above or below the fulcrum pivot point.

Well time goes by and I was researching cable shifters as I'm having some issues with my current one on the Ultima mated to a Porsche transaxle.

There's a lot more out there now with the growing market for cable shift ZF's in the GT40's.

Anyway came across two interesting products;

1. A paddle shifter from Mastershift with listed applications as RBT (ZF) 5 and 6 speed transaxles. Mastershift
2. A sequential shifter for 2 cable shifter transaxles (which the ZF is if used in a GT40, so presumably could be retrofitted to a Pantera). Seqshift 2

Bot of these have been successfuly fitted to Ultima's and use electromagnetic support to reduce wear on the synchro's.

Jeff 6559, the "notchy" feel of the shifter may have something to do with the spring and ball at the bottom of your shifter arm at the bottom of the shifter box. This is a detent mechanism designed to give weight and a precise feel to the shift position. Many of us have removed this ball and spring to give the shifter a looser and smoother touch. You might pull the shift arm and see if these parts are still there.
Later, Mooso.

FWIW, Lloyd Butfoy developed a modern paddle-shift mechanism as part of his bid to supply ZF 6-speeds for the Ford GT. Ford picked Riccardo for their transaxle supplier and I haven't heard much about the ZF paddle shifter in a couple of years. I'd call RBT Transmissions before I redesigned everything.
Info: the ZF 5-speed weighs 150 lbs with bellhousing & cluch linkage; dunno what the ZF 6-speed weighs or costs now. The Riccardo is longer & weighs 200 lbs with no bellhousing & costs around $18,000- when you can find one. Good luck rigging a shifter & mounts, too.