Getting close to having all the parts for a major engine maintenance overhaul. Ordered up a timing belt kit (w/coolant, water pump, belts, etc), valve cover gasket kit, and a serpentine belt tensioner arm and pulley for $300 shipped from Blauparts.

I'll be picking up a Febi cam chain tensioner and 034 silicone breather hose set as well.

 

Nice What Short Shifter Do You Have I'm Looking For One?

 

I got one off ebay, replica of the B&M shifter. Has worked well for 3 years now.

 

I have the same one. It's a lot more sloppy than the JHM Trio, but it also isn't $400 . Had one in my first B5 for two years and this one going on 3 with zero problems.

 

Did you guys replace all of the bushings that came in your ebay kit? I did mine and don't feel like it is sloppy at all? I've never tried the JHM kit.

I'll third that the ebay kit has worked well for me. Mine didn't have the push-down reverse, but I'm not sure if you can keep that while installing one of these. I know that there is included hardware so that you can, but I've heard people have trouble with it.

 

I used the ebay short shifter for a couple years. It worked, but the pre-facelift shifter setup induces a lot of slop that I just didn't want to deal with.

So I moved over to the JHM setup, which uses the newer style (facelift) shifter mechanism. And I'm very pleased! Considering how much shifting I have to do (living in SoCal can be rough on shifting) the decrease in slop was definitely worth the money.

 

I haven't replaced the bushings and there is quite a bit of slop, I can get a good 3" of side play in any gear. This can be improved by using the JHM solid bushings and moving to the solid shifter.

My car has the older non U-joint style shifter arm which doesn't fit with the JHM bushings. There is a method to improve the style on my car, but the JHM approach seems much more simple. I snagged a newer style arm from a pick n pull for a few bucks but I just haven't got around to spending $130 on the new bushing set. I may wait until I can just get the facelift shifter package like Metalman has. I'm not a fan of the pushdown mechanism.

 

replaced my fuel filter today and re tensioned my tbelt. my filter wasnt even that bad, but feels good to do it regardless. i just bought a wix 33156, came with the crush washers for under $17

 

Just finished replacing my plugs and the coil packs. The old ones were the black and white, square top type with the two bolts that held them to the head. Replaced with the red top type. Not really sure I like them. Don't like the space around the "pencil" part of the coil packs. Seems like it will be troublesome.

 

Yeah one minute you can be haulin on the highway and then have to downshift because some dick pulled out in front of you or just damn traffic lol. I think I might just go with the JHM