Installed UUC shifter and bushings on my '05. WOW!!!
03-09-2010, 01:23 PM
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Installed UUC shifter and bushings on my '05. WOW!!! This is the shifter that this car should have come with. Aside from one of the torx bolts wanting to strip on the passenger side of the crossmember(wouldn't loosen at all, so I left it and just let it bend a bit), the installation was smooth. I was stubborn and tried to do it without dropping the exhaust, but after a bunch of fiberglass shavings in my arm and curse words from tring to get the drivers side clip out of the mounting bracket, I relented. The result is a world of difference. Now to get the rest of the squishiness out of the drivetrain... Does anybody make a one-pece driveshaft for the V1? I've been under my car a couple of times before, but I never noticed the fact that the driveshaft has RUBBER MOUNTS at both ends!
03-09-2010, 01:31 PM
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Gforce is or was working on a one piece driveshaft for the V. Last I heard, they were hoping to release it this month but there hasn't been an update in a while.
03-09-2010, 05:11 PM
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Yeah! Im going stock modded which feels better than any other shifter IMO and ill be replacing all my bushings on the entire car and motor mounts too asap.
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03-12-2010, 02:34 PM
#9
I don't trust the welding method in the long term (no, I don't have any data to support that and it's just an opinion) and I don't think the hole in the pipe is the exact same size as the originals, but to each his own. My method is pressing on a stainless steel extension, modifying the top half of the shifter for better feel and lowering the **** height. I also check to see if the bushings are worn out (many of them are and cause a ton of side to side play) and replace them with a redesigned version if they are.
03-12-2010, 03:35 PM
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I was looking at the shifter trying to see if raising the part that holds the pivot up was possible. But its realy not unless you cut some of the body and it just looked like more trouble then its worth
We cant realy have a real short shifter because of the place of the driveshaft and the coupler. unless someone totaly changed out the linkage setup .
We cant realy have a real short shifter because of the place of the driveshaft and the coupler. unless someone totaly changed out the linkage setup .
Last edited by maxspeed96ct; 03-12-2010 at 03:45 PM.
03-12-2010, 06:07 PM
#11
Raise the pivot point of the shifter, as the B&M does. It will make shifting notchier, but it will shorten the shifts. 07, perhaps in the future you can come up with a spacer that fits between the shifter mount with the 2 bolt holes, and the plate in the car, so the pivot point is raised a bit. Then you won't have an issue with the connection to the transmission arm hitting the arm.
03-12-2010, 10:04 PM
#12
Lubelizard - funny you mention that as I have one sitting in my shop now that is 1/4" thick. The large plastic hold down plate would have to be notched out in order to allow the pivot to raise up into the cabin. The only issue I've had with my shifter hitting the driveshaft is with one vehicle that had a UUC trans mount installed. The trans mount was removed and was measured to be 3/8" taller than the stock mount. This car also experienced driveling vibration that went away after putting the stock mount back in. Ironically, my shifter has just about 3/8" of clearance to the driveshaft coupling when the trans mount is the stock height.
If anyone wants to use the spacer to get MUCH shorter shifts I'll install a longer insert on the bottom portion of the shifter and lower the top portion 1". This would still lower the **** height about 3/8" from stock.
If anyone wants to use the spacer to get MUCH shorter shifts I'll install a longer insert on the bottom portion of the shifter and lower the top portion 1". This would still lower the **** height about 3/8" from stock.
03-15-2010, 09:56 AM
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I don't trust the welding method in the long term (no, I don't have any data to support that and it's just an opinion) and I don't think the hole in the pipe is the exact same size as the originals, but to each his own. My method is pressing on a stainless steel extension, modifying the top half of the shifter for better feel and lowering the **** height. I also check to see if the bushings are worn out (many of them are and cause a ton of side to side play) and replace them with a redesigned version if they are.
I'll give you props for replacing the bushings and lowering the **** height, I'm curious as to how you do that. Plus yours looks nicer.
My way was very cheap I'm happy with the result.
06-11-2011, 04:04 PM
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Like GulfM3 did, I picked up a short 1/2" steel pipe nipple at Lowe's, cut it down to the same width as the shifter bushing location, and then had it welded (I can't weld myself). The Midas I went to knows me, as I bring them all sorts of wheels and race tires to mount, so they were pretty intrigued by what I was doing. They didn't charge me anything, but I gave a $20 tip to the guy who actually did the welding since he stopped what he was working on to take care of me.
Before slapping some paint on it:
Painted and compared to the stock shifter:
As you can see in that second picture, I used a die to put threads on the short shifter. The reason for that was to install a red leather Holden **** I had picked up on eBay Australia. (My brother's V is red.) The shift lever is 14.7mm in diameter, so I had to grind it down a bit (to 14.3mm) to put 9/16" threads on it. It was admittedly crude, but I figured for a non-critical joint like a shift **** it would be just fine.
You can kind of also see the pretty white bushings in the bottom of the shifter. Those are delrin bushings I picked up from PISNUOFF over on cadillacforums. I actually don't think the stock bushings in that joint were in that bad a shape, but I didn't know that ahead of time, so getting the bushings from PISNUOFF was the smart way to go to be fully prepared.
I also picked up UUC poly shifter bushings from Luke @ Lindsay. That was definitely necessary, as the stock bushings were absolutely shot - I didn't get any pics, but others have posted pictures of their shredded shifter bushings before, so nothing new there. I think those torn up bushings were probably the source of most of the play.
You can see how big a difference it made in the stroke of the shifter (both pictures taken with the car in 3rd gear):
The stock shifter setup was even worse than the picture makes it seem. With the play in the bushings, your fingers would nearly touch the A/C, particularly when you shifted to 5th. When you let pressure off the lever, it would relax back to the position you see in the picture.
The end result is that my brother says the setup is 1000x better than it was before. It was so bad that he had stopped enjoying the car, so I was very happy to be able to get it back where it should be.
06-13-2011, 09:11 AM
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I test drove a number of stock shifter cars before buying mine with the UUC. And all I can say is if this car didnt have it installed and I didnt know how much better it was... I wouldnt have gotten a CTS-V. Thats how bad i hated the stock shifter. Coming from japanese cars which are normally much more direct and smoother feeling.... the UUC makes it feel like it SHOULD in a sports sedan.
09-28-2011, 05:13 PM
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Bumping an old thread... I recently did the same thing for my brother's '05 CTS-V. His shifter had tons of play in it and made the car horrible to drive. I figured the bushings were probably shot, and since we'd have to pull the thing apart to get to the bushings, we might as well upgrade the shifter while we were at it. Since the car was 400mi away from me, and I wanted to have a shifter ready to go when I went home to visit family, I picked up a spare shifter off eBay and had it modified.
Like GulfM3 did, I picked up a short 1/2" steel pipe nipple at Lowe's, cut it down to the same width as the shifter bushing location, and then had it welded (I can't weld myself). The Midas I went to knows me, as I bring them all sorts of wheels and race tires to mount, so they were pretty intrigued by what I was doing. They didn't charge me anything, but I gave a $20 tip to the guy who actually did the welding since he stopped what he was working on to take care of me.
Before slapping some paint on it:
Painted and compared to the stock shifter:
As you can see in that second picture, I used a die to put threads on the short shifter. The reason for that was to install a red leather Holden **** I had picked up on eBay Australia. (My brother's V is red.) The shift lever is 14.7mm in diameter, so I had to grind it down a bit (to 14.3mm) to put 9/16" threads on it. It was admittedly crude, but I figured for a non-critical joint like a shift **** it would be just fine.
You can kind of also see the pretty white bushings in the bottom of the shifter. Those are delrin bushings I picked up from PISNUOFF over on cadillacforums. I actually don't think the stock bushings in that joint were in that bad a shape, but I didn't know that ahead of time, so getting the bushings from PISNUOFF was the smart way to go to be fully prepared.
I also picked up UUC poly shifter bushings from Luke @ Lindsay. That was definitely necessary, as the stock bushings were absolutely shot - I didn't get any pics, but others have posted pictures of their shredded shifter bushings before, so nothing new there. I think those torn up bushings were probably the source of most of the play.
You can see how big a difference it made in the stroke of the shifter (both pictures taken with the car in 3rd gear):
The stock shifter setup was even worse than the picture makes it seem. With the play in the bushings, your fingers would nearly touch the A/C, particularly when you shifted to 5th. When you let pressure off the lever, it would relax back to the position you see in the picture.
The end result is that my brother says the setup is 1000x better than it was before. It was so bad that he had stopped enjoying the car, so I was very happy to be able to get it back where it should be.
Like GulfM3 did, I picked up a short 1/2" steel pipe nipple at Lowe's, cut it down to the same width as the shifter bushing location, and then had it welded (I can't weld myself). The Midas I went to knows me, as I bring them all sorts of wheels and race tires to mount, so they were pretty intrigued by what I was doing. They didn't charge me anything, but I gave a $20 tip to the guy who actually did the welding since he stopped what he was working on to take care of me.
Before slapping some paint on it:
Painted and compared to the stock shifter:
As you can see in that second picture, I used a die to put threads on the short shifter. The reason for that was to install a red leather Holden **** I had picked up on eBay Australia. (My brother's V is red.) The shift lever is 14.7mm in diameter, so I had to grind it down a bit (to 14.3mm) to put 9/16" threads on it. It was admittedly crude, but I figured for a non-critical joint like a shift **** it would be just fine.
You can kind of also see the pretty white bushings in the bottom of the shifter. Those are delrin bushings I picked up from PISNUOFF over on cadillacforums. I actually don't think the stock bushings in that joint were in that bad a shape, but I didn't know that ahead of time, so getting the bushings from PISNUOFF was the smart way to go to be fully prepared.
I also picked up UUC poly shifter bushings from Luke @ Lindsay. That was definitely necessary, as the stock bushings were absolutely shot - I didn't get any pics, but others have posted pictures of their shredded shifter bushings before, so nothing new there. I think those torn up bushings were probably the source of most of the play.
You can see how big a difference it made in the stroke of the shifter (both pictures taken with the car in 3rd gear):
The stock shifter setup was even worse than the picture makes it seem. With the play in the bushings, your fingers would nearly touch the A/C, particularly when you shifted to 5th. When you let pressure off the lever, it would relax back to the position you see in the picture.
The end result is that my brother says the setup is 1000x better than it was before. It was so bad that he had stopped enjoying the car, so I was very happy to be able to get it back where it should be.
sorry i just got my cts-v so im still learning...why did you guys weld that piece of pipe under the stock hole? (was it just to get a shorter shift through, or does it actaully clean up some shift slop?) could i just make a poly or steel sleeve to fit inside my stock hole and put on a good SS bolt and lock nut?