Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Three Wheeler & Super 3 Shifters to the fore!

Over the holidays I decided it was time to do something about the shifter position on my 2012 M3W. I never liked the rear shifter position of the early cars, and a chance to sit in a newer machine with the forward gearstick last summer helped to decide it was time for action. A little online research showed I only needed to buy one $54 part from Mazda to relocate the gearstick (7" forward!), and I could re-use the stick that came with the machine. Though after a short run with the very vertical original stick, I really wanted one bent a bit back, and preferably to the left, so the stick would "fall readily to hand". I had thoughts of cutting off the original stick and having a machine shop bore into the pivot ball so we could install a custom shaft, but in the end I sprang for a MiataRoadster short shift stick, with a custom bend (expensive, but highly rated on the Mazda forums I searched).

Wow. I thought removing the originally installed shifter extension helped, but the new short shifter gives the gearbox a very nice 'snicky' feel, comparable to my Lotus Elan (my gold standard). So the stick was now forward, (and 1/2" raised due to the short shifter) and I was planning on modifying the original gearbox cover to suit. But with no shifter at the back, the stock cover is just an unnecessarily large intrusion into the cockpit for no purpose. And my original one had a large hole where the original shifter was positioned. So utilizing the skills gained from owning plastic Lotus cars for 35 years, I took many hours over many weeks to fabricate a fiberglass cover that gives adequate space to the gearbox with minimum intrusion into the cockpit. It's about 2" lower overall than the original, and about 5" at the back end. I'm now looking for a trimmer to match the rest of the leather, or failing that, perhaps just black.

BTW-the shift knob is an MG item, retapped to 10MM. I'm still looking for a vintage vibe (i.e. smallish) one with correct 5 speed pattern.

How tall are you to want to move the shifter?

I'm a thin 5' 10", but it's not about height. To my machine interface taste, honed over the years with dozens of sports machines, many of which saw track duty, I want the shift knob in neutral to be about 2-3" forward of the steering wheel (once the wheel is correctly positioned), and about 3" from the rim horizontally. That's my instinctive comfort zone, and is simply a strong personal preference. The early M3W shifter is about 2" rearward of the steering wheel, and dead vertical in neutral, which to me, yields an unnatural arm movement backwards from the wheel to the shifter (especially in 2nd and 4th), as well an unnatural shift movement. I tend to use a "3 finger" shift style (more wrist), not a punchy "fist" style (more arm), and a more forward shift knob facilitates this. Again, just personal preference.

I should add that my shifter relocation project is 100% bolt on and reversible, as I'm storing away the original bits for the next owner in the event that their version of a perfect man-machine interface is different than mine.

Height has to do with reach. My wing span, ie reach, is much shorter than yours since I am 5’6”

I have one of the shifters as well. Nice piece of kit but a little spendy.

Nice cover BitsoBrits

+1

Nice work!