Brandwood shifter woes and impressions 😕 - UPDATED

[Power Surge]

So I like to think I'm a pretty intelligent guy. I've owned over a hundred vehicles and have been building custom cars for 30 plus years. But this cable shift seems to be kicking my ***.

I set the cables up as per the instructions. Set the four and aft adjustment on the main cable. Then put the transmission into reverse and set the gate cable. When I went to set the gate cable the rod end was about an inch off from the hole in the bracket so I had to do some adjustments on the cable sleeve to line that up which I thought was a bit odd.

The issue that I seem to be having is that the main cable seems to be working fine but the gate cable will not get me into reverse or fifth gear. Now I do understand how it all works so I'm a little perplexed. I cannot get the shifter to move over to the left enough to rotate the cable rod on the transmission into the reverse detent. If I disconnect the rod end from the transmission, I can get the transmission to go into reverse no problem, and I can get the shifter to go into the reverse position no problem, and everything perfectly lines up at the transmission between the rod end and the shifter coupling. But when they are actually attached the shifter will not rotate the shaft on the transmission enough to get into reverse. Same thing with fifth gear. I've tried various adjustments and no matter what I do I still can't get the shifter to get into reverse, or 5th gear for that matter.

Do these cars need to be running for proper engagement? I would think not but I also have no prior experience with this Porsche transmission. Everything seems to be lined up properly but yet the shifter won't actually move the transmission coupler where it's supposed to and I feel like would have to force the shifter really hard to get it to engage if it was going to engage.

I'm also not been overly impressed with this setup thus far. The bracket on the transmission seems very flimsy and easily flexed. Also the part of the bracket that the main cable goes into is completely at the wrong angle. It makes the cable Point downward coming out of the threaded end, however the cable goes vastly upwards as it exits the threaded end as it's attachment point on the transmission is higher than the mount on the bracket. I haven't seen enough pictures of this bracket installed on a transmission to see if maybe it's not made correctly.

Any help would be appreciated as I don't want to break the shifter or the transmission trying to get this set up correctly.

[VRaptor SpeedWorks, LLC]

I guess first off, yes.....it takes a fairly massive amount of force to get past the reverse detent.....as in....take the shifter and go as far right as you can and then move it as hard as you can to the left to pop it past the detent. One of my customers was not happy with this situation, so he changed the geometry of the shift cable with a new bracket....and also appears that they lengthened the "lever arm" on the shift shaft of the transaxle. Sorry that the photo is so small/blurry.

Shift Linkage Mod.png

The change in angle will make a huge difference in the mechanical advantage of getting into reverse.

Yes, I do think I ran into that issue with the top cable bracket on a couple of cars, and just pulled the bracket back off and bent it to the correct angle in a vice.

As far as not being able to get it into 5th, I'd say try to bias your main cable a bit to bring the shift lever farther back when in neutral. I've never ran into a case where I couldn't get all of the gears. You shouldn't need quite as much shifter movement to get into 2nd and 4th as you need to get into R and 5th, so hopefully adjusting the big cable will get you where you need to go?

[Power Surge]

Thanks Shane. The other thing that I noticed is my bracket does not look like all the pictures of everyone else's brackets from brandwood, even the ones on their website. All the other brackets I have seen are those nice strong tube style brackets, but mine is made of flat sheet metal. I can actually grab the bracket where the gate cable goes into it and flex it back and forth with my hand. That makes me think I'm losing shifter movement to bracket Flex

[beeman]

If your bracket is flexing, you are losing cable excursion. Can you beef it up by welding in an angle support? My g96 bracket on the gearbox is beefy machined billet aluminum...
Like Shane mentioned, you might need to lengthen the lever arm on your shifter if you need more cable travel.

[Power Surge]

Ok so after doing lots of research I think I have come up with a game plan.

1- make the ears on the coupler longer for more leverage.

2- make sure the cables are mounted to the engine/trans, as loose cables "eat" movement transfer.

3- make a new cable bracket at the trans that is more solid mounted. I don't know why Brandwood changed the design. Every other GTM bracket I have found online is a nice tube re-enforced bracket. Mine is sheet steel and flexes considerably.

Sucks I will have to modify a brand new setup.

I think these will help significantly. Any other thoughts are definitely appreciated.

[VRaptor SpeedWorks, LLC]

Yeah, Brandwood must have changed the design of the bracket.....all of the ones I've ever worked on were made from small steel tubing and were fairly rigid once installed.

[Power Surge]

After spending a few days of understanding the function of both the shifter and the transmission, I have come up with a revised design.

The main issues I was having with the stuff Brandwood sent me was as follows:

1- The transmission bracket was flexing too much. Both overall and at the gate cable end. Pictures of other GTM Brandwood brackets look much different than what I was sent, and mine has no cross support.

2- The angle how the main cable comes out the bracket was wrong in two directions. This was putting side stress on the inner cable as it comes out the pivot housing, as the pivot housing can only rotate so many degrees in any direction. The angle of the bracket made the inner cable bind both upwards and inwards.

3- The end where the gate cable mounts, seemed to be exactly one inch too far towards the transmission. This made it almost impossible to get the gate cable hiem end onto the shifter coupling without completely maxing out the adjustment threads on the cable and hiem end. Even then, it seemed there was not enough geometry to make the shifter work properly in all gears. Pics of other GTM Brandwood brackets appear that the gate cable mount is about an inch more to the left, which would explain why mine geometry seems off an inch to the right.

Here are pics of how it came from Brandwood:

[Power Surge]

So what I did was revise all the cable geometry to where I felt everything should work properly.

I welded a gusset to stop the gate cable mount flex.

I completely changed the position and angle of the main cable mount point. I then re-enforced it with an extra plate of metal for no flex. The main cable now engages the pivot ball on the shift coupler with no stress on the cable in any direciton.

I made a passenger's side mount plate and welded some round stock over to the main mount, eliminating all flex in the bracket whatsoever.

I cut the ears off the shift coupler, and welded on a new, longer ear, and positioned it to correct the gate cable being an inch off.

With all these changes, I can now simply reach into the car from outside and get EVERY gear, including reverse, with ONE hand.

Here's some pics of the revised setup:

[VRaptor SpeedWorks, LLC]

Yeah, that's definitely a whole different trans bracket than anything I've seen. Looks like you nailed it with some major improvements!