Gearstick vibration/rattle

[CMF_White Knight]

I know this has been talked about before but was a solution found to the annoying buzz that seems to occure in a lot of Micras in 5th. gear around 100kph and upwards??
Cisco I think from memory you did some work on this

 

[cisco]

Yeah I know this rattle. Its a design fault that affects a lot of micras, I think especially after the bushes in the gearstick linkage thing get dryer/harder/older.. Some pulsars suffer from it too..

I have successfully sorted the blue monster's rattle. The main things I did were:

• Inserted some thin copper washes in between the shifter's pivot bush and the shifter linkage/cup thing that surrounds it. This stops the surround clamp thing from clamping the bearing tight against everything else. So you need the tiny washers in there to allow it to move freely while still being done up tight.
  
• At the front of the linkage where it bolts up to the gearbox, there's a 4-way cross type linkage. I.e. two pins that allow the linkage to move in both directions. One of them was very loose and you can't tighten it at all. That was the main culprate on my car. The noise was actually this pin buzzing around and being transmitted right up through the shifter. So you never suspect it, because its so far away from the actual rattling shifter.
  So.. I belted that out of there with a big mallet and a big metal chisel/punch type thing until it broke. Then I replaced it with a long bolt and nut setup. But I deliberately bent the bolt so it was more like a slight gradual bend/arc. Once inserted, this made it fit much tighter and reduce its ability to slap because there were no gaps any more. Also used a spring washer so it would remain tight once done up.
  
• Removed my aftermarket gear knob. This is also a key culpurate. Nissan know about the high levels of noise and vibration transmission up the linkage shaft, hence they make the gear knob solid heavy rubber. Totally for a reason to dampen and reduce vibrations. By putting this back on, it halved the loudness of the vibrations even before I fixed the other things (above points).
  
• After doing all 3 of the above, it would still very quietly and very occasionally rattle a bit. Just a bit annoying after it was almost totally fixed! So I got some of the rubber anti-slip mat (like I have sitting on the top of my dash) and I wound it around the top of the shifter (inside the rubber gaitor) tightly, and then re-installed the gaitor back over the top of it so the gaitor held it in firmly. This acted as a last resort smaller-scale shock absorber and completely removed every last trace of the rattle.

Now it absolutely never comes back and I can't believe it

This rattle was a part of my life for a very long time, so I am emotionally scarred and always paranoid that its going to come back any day. heh.

 

[CMF_White Knight]

Thanks Cisco. You need maybe to write this up in the info section!!
I will now attack mine with a vengance ( plus the sledge hammer)
No issues with Hack but old Whitey sure has the buzz.

 

[CMF_evade]

Lol it still is a large part of my driving and i avent bothered to fix it yet..

need to do the small washers thing

 

[CMF_White Knight]

Cisco you are a dead set legend.
Whitey went up on the hoist and followed step 1 and 2 as per your outline.
No more rattle and my gear throws are so smooth. ( I have the short shifter installed)
In 5th gear I used to have a fair amount of slop sideways, now none.
Its now snick, snick and hey no more hand on the knob ( did I say that?)to stop the buzz/rattle.
You need to add this to the site oh master and take a patent out on the fix and sell it under licence to every Nissan dealer.
My emotional scars are now healed.
You are up there with the Socceroos.

 

[cisco]

Oh excellent. That's magic, glad to hear it.

Yes life could move on once I had that crap fixed too!

Ok I'll add it to the Technical Articles section right now.

 

[cisco]

Done!

http://www.micra.com.au/information/nissan-micra-articles/gearstick-rattle.php

 

[CMF_Monster]

Hi Cisco..Could you pls advise me on the bolt dimension for pre facelifted K11. I changed to a shortshifter, but realised that it is actually for pre facelifted k11. My bolt size (diameter of body shaft) of my facelifted k11 was actually larger than the pre facelifted. bolt, so could not fit into the hole. Now I am using those full threaded type screw and it is giving me a lot of rattling sound, so I am thinking of getting some machine shop to turn out the bolt. Any advise on the body diameter of the bolt? Tks a thousand....