I murdered my Blowfish shifter bracket

I had my friend Mr. GM Freak take a cutting wheel to the loop part of the bracket:



The part he chopped off is for use with the stock shifter, using the MGW does not allow the rear support bushing bracket to be positioned in the proper location in relation to where the bracket is bolted in the OE location.



You can see in the above picture the MGW bracket is mounted as far back as possible, the stock location ears on the bracket prevents the MGW bracket to be moved further back now with it not there the Gen 2 bracket can be attached properly on the BF bracket for use with the shifter.

The part chopped off can be easily welded back on at a later time for stock shifter use.

Not in the mood at the moment to go under the car again to mess with this so this will get done later this year (probably during winter storage). This is what I should've done instead of messing with the billet top plate of the shifter. BTW George got in touch with me I will be calling him later today to find out about getting another top plate, stay tuned.

Tony

Good to have handy friends with handy toys. At least you know there was a problem between the two products and I am sure George will take care of you. Really a nice and knowledgeable guy.

Great info, thank you for sharing.

Now that the BF factory shifter tab ears have been removed the MGW bracket has noting in the way to move back but are the bolt holes to that mount the MGW bracket to the BF loop slotted to allow the rearward movement you need?

Edit:
Looked at a few pics online and I see the BF bracket has the slotted bolts need to move the MGW bracket back.


The BF shifter loop mount you have is there V2 version and to use an aftermarket shifter mount it seems mandatory you have to cut the factory shifter tab ears off. It’s odd they wouldn’t mention this in the instructions. If you look at the V1 version you can see the shifter mount system is more modular and the factory tab ears are a bolt on piece just like the MGW mount is.

Yes it's slotted.



The pic above shows the bracket mounted as far back as it can go with those ears in place. There is still lots more room to go back more with them removed.

Yeah mine's the V2 version, would've been nice if those ear tabs bolted on instead of being part of the loop bracket. Sometimes the so called "improved" version isn't as good as the original. The only advantage so far with the V2 version is the lesser weight vs. their original design.

I spoke with George via phone today, I'll post up what we talked about in a later post.

I'm anxious to hear what George had to say because if you've found a way to improve upon his system HE WILL SURELY INCORPORATE IT somehow!!

Sounds like you might be making progress!!

So my discussion with George @ MGW was on the top plate, I can get a new top plate complete with the rubber gasket membrane for like $50.00 so not too bad basically what I saved on the Easter holiday sale price on the shifter I'm giving it back.

The individual parts of the top plate are actually available separately, so since I dremeled the square plate and not the round area I could just get that piece if I wanted to but it was only going to be like $8-10 difference in price vs. the complete plate so for me just easier to get the complete thing.

The next thing was about the notchiness, George suggested that I loosen the rear support bracket on the car and loosen the bolts that attach the front support arms 1-2 turns from full tight starting only at the driver's side bolts then try the shifter. If it feels better shifting add a shim or washer to that left side, tighten everything back up and it should be fine. If that does nothing loosen the pass. side bolts also and check the shifting, if it's better then again add shim/washer to that side and tighten everything up.

It has something to do with the tight tolerances of the shifter shaft bearing inside the body of the shifter and how the body is attached in relation to the trans. centerline. Some engine/trans. installed @ the factory might not be totally aligned within the centerline of the chassis and since the Gen 2 is precisely machined it might put a slight load/pressure on the brg. if the trans is not attached to the car properly from Ford.

After a brief search I found this post:

https://www.svtperformance.com/threads/clunky-notchy-shifting-with-mgw-gen2.1109179/

It doesn't precisely mention what George told me but I think it's related. The problem is most people say the shifter new is notchy and will free up a bit with use and right now I have no reference as to whether my shifter is notchy because it's new and get better with use or it's notchy because of what George mentioned to me and what's in the thread above.

Since bolting the rear support bracket to the car I do notice it is slightly better shifting than before with that part on the BF bracket but I still hope that it will be better with use and time, but I don't know if the shifter right now is perfectly inline with the trans as George mentioned so I will have to check that...……………………….so much with wanting to not get under the car again.

I also wonder if I put off getting under the car to check this would I cause damage to the shifter using it currently?

New billet top plate ordered from MGW and will be shipped to my hotel when I'm there for the AM car show.

Mine is not like yours since mine is for the MT82 Transmission but the stiff (notchy) feeling comes in part from the springs that return the shifter to the middle if not forced left or right!! It does loosen up in time but the springs make all shifts.....both up and down SPOT ON once you get everything adjusted!!

It may take a little getting used to but it will be worth it in the long run.......GOOD LUCK and travel safe to the AM Car Show!!

So since putting the rear support bracket of the Gen 2 in the proper location, I have driven the car quite a bit and it seems to me that the shifter has loosen up a bit. It seems a lot easier to row through the gears and I haven't had an issue with my 3-2 downshifts (been nailing them everytime). I'm wondering if I even need to worry about the procedure George told me to check about the alignment of the shifter in relation to the trans.

I'm still using my marked up stock shift ball and with the console off the car for the moment I've just screwed the ball on the handle till it's hand tight, the shift pattern is not pointing in the proper orientation but don't care right now. The best part of this so far is that the shift ball hasn't loosen up at all. That tells me I'm not manhandling the shifter like before with my BF bracket setup causing the ball to rotate on me.

My new top plate is waiting at the hotel for me to pick up next weekend, I'll get that installed properly and in the correct location then once that is all done I can put the console back, then later I'll work on locating the rear support bracket onto my modded BF bracket (keeping it in the exact location like OE) then it'll be all done.

Glad you're getting it sorted out.......it will loosen up over time as well as you getting used to it!!

I now have the BF bracket back on the car and the MGW rear support bracket is properly attached to the loop part of the BF bracket (and in the proper spot to boot).

I took some pictures and will upload them later this aftn. along with the "crap" I gotta do to get this setup working the way it's supposed to.

So what you need...…………...and to do to use the BF bracket with MGW Gen 2 shifter:

To keep the Gen 2 shifter body and the rear body mount in the exact OE location, first put a 3/8" drive socket underneath the shifter body and above the driveshaft (in my case a 19mm short 3/8" drive socket fits perfectly there). The socket keeps the shifter body in the proper place so it doesn't drop down when you remove the rear body mount.

Now remove the rear body mount and rotate it 180 degrees and place it back on the rear shifter mount pins, make a note beforehand how much the pins stick through the body mount (they actually don't stick out a lot it's actually more like flush).

Now when you raise the loop part of the BF bracket you will realize that at the highest height of the loop bracket will go it is nowhere close to the bottom of the rear body mount that you rotated and mounted on the shifter body pins, that gap distance is about 1 1/8".

I hit a metal place where they sell various metals in various sizes (called Metal Supermarkets in my area, your local area may have something similar). Metal Supermarkets | Steel, Aluminum, Stainless, Hot-Rolled, Cold-Rolled, Alloy, Carbon, Galvanized, Brass, Bronze, Copper and get a piece of square stock alum. 1.25" x1.25" x 5". You also need 2 6mm bolts 2.5" long with 2 nuts, 2 flat washers and 2 lock washers.

You can either slot the 2 holes you need on either side of the alum stock or measure precisely and drill a 6mm hole on either side so you can bolt together the rear Gen 2 bracket, alum stock and BF loop bracket with the longer bolts, nuts, washers that you got.

Once it's all together, get under the car and attach the Gen 2 mount to the shifter pins then tighten up the BF loop bracket to the trans bracket, remove the socket you had under the shifter body and you are done. The shifter is now in the OE spot and also the rear shifter bracket but rotated 180 degrees (if you have it in the proper spot on the BF bracket it clears the 2 studs where it was bolted originally and doesn't contact any part of the floor underneath the car).

Pics:





When the car is stored I plan to paint the alum stock so it isn't just bare alum under there (not worried about it right now since it's alum and won't rust).

Shifts just like before and no extra vibrations and/or noises.

So now that you have gone through all this and the BF bracket has the shifter in the correct location so it shifts just like before. Do you notice a difference in shifting smoothness/performance or is shifting literally just the same and not worth adding?

Why do you need the Blowfish bracket anyway??

Coosawjack said:

Why do you need the Blowfish bracket anyway??

Click to expand...

To remove the semi remote mount setup of the factory shifter and Gen2 (basically the rear support bushing is now mounted to the BF bracket which is mounted to the trans instead of having it bolted to the car)

merkyworks said:

So now that you have gone through all this and the BF bracket has the shifter in the correct location so it shifts just like before. Do you notice a difference in shifting smoothness/performance or is shifting literally just the same and not worth adding?

Click to expand...

I still have to test it when I hit the dragstrip (that's coming later this month or next month). My Shelby at the moment is still up on my Quickjack since I'm also sorting out an OTA pipe exhaust issue and just got that done this aftn.

Yesterday with the car still up in the air I did start it and went through all the gears and noticed nothing out of the ordinary compared to before with the Gen 2 mounted like OE, tomorrow I'll have it back down and will go for a drive and see how it is with this setup.

MHO so far is this: It's a lot of crap to do just to see if this car will get 2nd gear under WOT high rpm use. It's kinda BS that using the BF bracket as described in the instructions DOES NOT work properly with the MGW. If I didn't already have the bracket I wouldn't have bothered to get it just to see if it will work. Now having the Gen 2 mounted to the bracket and sitting in the proper spot I will soon find out if this will help with shifting this car under racing conditions.

Ok, I just came home from driving the car with this setup. The shifter shifts fine and I did 3 deadstop WOT hits back to back to back to 6500 rpms and got 2nd gear all 3 times. Looks like this might be the setup to sort out the lockout/grind.

My only issue now is driving on anything less than totally smooth roads the rear Gen2 bracket is hitting the floor (not hard but you hear it) so that's annoying.

Obviously the trans does move up and down quite a bit on its mount when driving, it is tight between the top of the Gen 2 bracket and the floor. My next idea to see if I can fix this is maybe try some sponge/foam adhesive backing stuff and attach it to the top of the Gen 2 bushing and see if that will get rid of the banging. Other than that I'm pretty happy with this setup so far, again the real test is at the dragstrip

Is the rear shifter mount hitting the original mounting studs on the body?

Not sure on that one, I'll get the car in the air after work today, have a look and report back.

All good now!!!! I lowered the shifter 1/2" (I tried 3/4" at first but couldn't get my even gears so the BF loop bracket went up 1/4") and everything is perfect!!!!

No more banging under the floor of the car when driving and again I tested it this time 2 back to back deadstop WOT pulls to 6500rpm and 2nd gear is my new friend!!!! I love it!!!!

Holy shit does the front end of my car point to the sky when I lay into it so I guess my about 30lbs. weight reduction in the front end actually does something.

Gotta go back to the track and get a time for my car in its current stage of mods...…………..low 11's here I come (should be doable now getting the shifter fiasco sorted out at last).

Tony