My bro was in town visiting for a couple of days so I let him take the car out for a drive (2007 997tt with some upgrades - roughly 650-675hp?) and he came back with a sheepish look on his face. At the end of his drive a few blocks from home he tries to shift from 2nd to 3rd and it wouldn't go. Managed to get it back into 2nd and limped home.

With the car off and the clutch pedal depressed the shifter feels weird! Doesn't go from gear to gear. The only gear I can get it into is 2nd and it does drive without any grinding noises to suggest broken transmission but hey what do I really know about transmissions, lol.

Any thoughts? Not that it matters b/c it has to go into the shop anyway but I'm just trying to decide on taking it into dealership vs aftermarket. If it's something simple like linkage I think any decent shop should be able to do it. Car just out of warranty (of course!).

 

Thanks to the power of google I found an aftermarket solution that costs pretty much the same as the oem shifter cable and is apparently as good as the cable on the Cup cars. Here is the link to the 6speed thread:

https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...up-cables.html

There's a dealer for this product just a few miles from me. yay.

If it turns out this isn't the problem...the hundreds of dollars for the cable aint gonna hurt much compared to the real fix.

 

Good luck Asher. Keep us posted.

 

I would just replace the factory rod end, they rarely can break. Should last the life of the car.
To be sure, just pop off the factory boot and look at the shifter mech with a flashlight, 5 min.

 

Thanks Dave and Chris.

I did pop off the boot cover but couldn't really see anything broken there. I'm sure if I popped the whole console off it would be more clear but since I've already paid for the new cable I'll let them diagnose and fix...

 

Sounds like a cable. Lucky it broke in 2nd. The AM one looks nice. Should be an easy fix.

 

Your brother should do commercials for Gorilla Glue, he must shift like one .

 

lol.

Lots of posts about this over on Rennlist so it's actually not an uncommon problem. Happens on Caymans and 997s apparently. Not just at the joints, there have been some cable breaks (the actual cable is inside the sleeve so from the outside it may not look like anything is wrong, but the gearshift feels like a spoon in a bucket of yogurt).

I'll post pics when this is done next Friday hopefully.

 

Apparently it takes 2-3 hours b/c of the way the cable is routed. Some guys have done it themselves but I'll wuss out and fork over the cash...

 

Make sure the links are in place. You will have to take the bottom tray under the car off and you will need an extra set if hands to help. Sometimes the links can come lose and you can snap them in place. Use a zip tie to keep them in place if you have to but be careful as the joints are made out if plastic...they can break easily.

 

I'm just going to pay the shop to do the job. The aftermarket piece is modelled after the Cup car cables with attention paid to minimize extra noise.

 

I'll just copy my post from the NR cable thread:

Just got my car back with them installed. First impression wasn't as positive as I had expected - I prefer the gate feel with the stock shifter. The feel with the NR cables is more "metallic" and clunky. But take that as just an initial opinion, I did think it "improved" a bit just on the drive home. I had no complaints with the stock shift feel so I was really hoping it was just like stock.

As far as noise goes, there is a high-pitched whine on acceleration and deceleration and a few more clunks than I noticed before but not awful by any means. And the whine makes it sound like a race car. No whine at steady speed, just on accel/decel. I have AWE exhaust which is louder than stock, and when the car was catless I think it would've overpowered the whine. Basically, the whine and additional noise is not a big deal, but I will post a followup regarding the shifter feel after putting some miles on it.

BTW, my original cable wasn't broken. When I had my clutch changed a couple of years ago the shop routed the cables incorrectly causing strain on the part that clips into the hanger just beside the transmission itself. A piece of plastic broke off causing the cable assembly to come out of the hanger. May have been fixable but since I had already purchased the NR cable we went ahead and swapped it out. <!-- / message -->

 

Hmm. NR doesn't sound all too appealing. May be best to just eat the NR cables and go back to stock. The stock shift is just so sweet in these cars.....one of the attractive and appealing features of the manual. Anything that detracts from that is an unnecessary backward step imo. Good to hear about the experience of this change out Asher.

 

Hey Paul, good to see you around here. Let me backtrack a little. After driving a bit more this evening I can tell that things have "settled in" a bit. Long story short, I like it a lot better than I first did. I don't think it's just me getting accustomed to it, it actually is starting to feel more smooth and precise and less notchy. I wouldn't say it's quite as good as stock imho yet, but it's getting close. I don't want to dissuade anyone else from getting a set so I will post more impressions in a few days or so. And remember, these cost the same as stock cables (at least up here) and they are built like jewelry compared to the stock plasticky bits, so they should hold up to manhandling by me or my gorilla-pawed brother, lol.

 

Cheers Asher and glad to hear the thumb is going from a little bit down back to up. Be good to get your later impressions and hope it all works out for the better .