Review and Install: B&M Knock-Off and 2G DSM Knob (AKA AMS Hammer Knob)

[Thoughtful_One]

After driving around with the SR in, everything felt great except for the shifter. There was so much slop and play in it, in and out of gear, I finally had enough and decided to upgrade. Thoguht there was slop, the old bushing was in perfect condition. There were no cracks or damage.

Not having enough money for a B&M, or even a second-hand one, I bit the bullet and bought the B&M knock-off, despite everybody saying that they are horrible. I was sick of heresay and wanted to see if they really were that bad. Knowing that the stock knob will not fit, I decided to buy a 2G DSM knob (AKA AMS Hammer knob).

I bought an eBay shifter some time ago, but it looked like it was very low quality. The circular plate was tilted, and the screws were crooked. Ended up selling it and making a profit. Plus the shipping took forever.

I eventually bought another from the eBay seller: "racinghouse". This one was in much better shape. The bushing and large round pivot all looked very good, but the samll bushing was not as good as OEM. The other eBay one was a lot of roughness to it. Shipping was also fantastic. Lesson: ALL EBAY SHIFTERS ARE NOT BUILT THE SAME.

I'll go over the install in-depth, then go over some impressions of it.

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First I'll go over what I got and what I noticed.

Here it is out of the box:

As you can see, it is very similar to the B&M in terms of aesthetics. The only real difference is that B&M give you the boot and the colors are a bit different. The height difference between this and the stock is only about 1/2".

First thing's first, change out the shifter bushing. No matter how it looks, it will never perform exactly like OEM. It looks sturdy, but after taking it off, it was quite flimsy.

Call Nissan and ask for part #: 32861-H7301. It ran me $5, which is not too bad since it will never have to be replaced ever again. it is made of nylon, and is very sturdy.

To remove the old one, just take a pair of pliers and pull it off. To put the new one on, put the bushing on something sturdy and push the shifter into it. I put the bushing on a piece of wood and pressed really hard on the shaft of the shifter. It'll take some effort. There's no need to do any filing, etc.

This is the new shift knob:

AMS sells this knob as the "Hammer", but in all reality it's just a knob from a DSM. It cost me $30 shipped. AMS sells theirs for $40 shipped.

Inital impressions are that it's a little heavier than stock knob. The majority of the weight resides at the very top of the knob. It has a good feel in your hands though, and does not look ricey. It looks very stock, and the stitching is a nice touch.

Stock setup:

In gear, there was so much play it's not funny. In first, you can make a circle that has a diameter of 1.25" at the top fo the knob with amount of play...

In first gear without pulling on it:

In first when pulling it to the left:

First take off the knob by turning it counter clock-wise. Remember righty-tighty, left-loosey. Then take off the shifter bezel. It's held in by six snaps, Just tug at it from the top and bottom and it'll come right off. Once you do this you'll be left with this:

Take off those four bolts with a 10 mm socket, or a very large Phillips screwdriver. It's used to hold the boot which prevents oil, dirt, air from coming into the cabin.

Once you do that, you'll be left with:

You can get to those 4 easily with a 12 mm socket, but the back 2 are tougher.

While still in the car witout dropping the transmission slightly, I used my gear wrench and was able to get it on the bolts and take them out, as well as slide the shifter out, but this is a waste of time since it was hard to get the bolts out.

You'll end up with this:

The first problem I had was that one of the holes didn't match the configuration of the transmission:

Turns out that the offset of the holes was exactly 1.5 cm, so I just drilled it out using a 3/8 drill bit.

Before anything else, I took the circular plate and packed the springs with grease, as well as the large round pivot on the base. You could really feel a difference in how smooth it was after doing this.

Once that's done, you need to remove the boot on the shaft of the old knob. Belive it or not, but the small part of the boot can stretch over the fat part of the handle. Just use a couple fo screwdrivers and it'll come off eventually. Also, when getting it off, I found that the rubber portion of the shifter contributed some to to the play. My guess is that's it there to just absorb some of the impact when shifting through gears. I do NOT think it's for damping of vibrations caused by the harmonics of the transmission (AKA rattle).

Shifter with boot and zip-ties:

Now at this point you have two options to install the shifter. You can either drill out two small holes in the transmission tunnel to slide the bolts into, or drop the transmission slighty. I decided to drop the transmission.

When your car is up on jacks, slide the jack under the transmission with a piece of wood, and get it so it's holding it up. Now, look at your transmission cross-member. It's held in with 4 17 mm bolts. Remove those. Once you do that, you can drop the jack slightly. Move it until you have enough room.



I have almost another inch there to play with now...

If your gasket is still good on the transmission, then you're fine. If not, put some RTV on there. I put some on there just for peace of mind.



Now install the shifter, lining up the nylon bushing with the corresponding hole in the transmission and bolt in all of the bolts. I did the corners, then the sides.



Slide on the large rubber boot and bolt that in. DO NOT OVERTIGHTEN since the metal the bolt is being screwed into isn't that thick. Just needs to be a little more than snug.

Snap the shifter bezel back in:

Finally, screw the knob in. The knob will keep turning until there is about 1/32 inch between the bottom of the knob and the shifter.

FINALLY:

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IMPRESSIONS

Right after install *WITHOUT* driving:

All I can say is WOW. Feels so much better. From the top of the shift knob, about 1" of travel gets you in 1st gear. There is very little slop, maybe 1/32 inch in neutral and all gears, and everything feels nice and tight. The amount of slop in the old shifter is the amount of distance needed to get into gear!

Driving Impressions: WOW X2, feels perfect. I got used to it VERY quickly, with in a matter of minutes. It feels so natural with this shifter. I thought I loved long throws, but these throws feel so great.

I've driven an SR powered S13 with a genuine B&M, and honestly, this feels 2X better. With that shifter, I had to really force it into gear, but with this one, it's like butter. Although, this depends on a lot of things like transmission condition.

After dirivng it around under 3000 to get a feel for it. I tested for the dreaded 5K rattle. Being prepared for the worst, I went up to 6K and heard NOTHING! No rattle BS. Couldn't hear *anything*. Coming home, I did hear a very FAINT rattle during deceleration at 3K, but it was very minor.

All in all, I spent:$45 for the shifter with shipping$5 for the OEM bushing$30 for the knob

Not bad considering the B&M alone without the shift knob is $200...

VERY satisfied and very happy with the results. I am also very picky when it comes to cars, and the smallest problem with something will annoy me. I have encountered nothing but good things.

Let me know if you have any questions/comments/concerns.

[ThuG LyFe]

wow thas great...i guess u got lucky tho cause usually you get what u pay for...

so basically i'ts like driving a modern car right? like shorter distance to gears?

[sebazztard]

well done, and well written. i felt like i was test driving it with ya lol.

[SketchyRollin564]

Nice dude, cant wait to get my real B&M The slop on mine is annoying as hell

Where did you buy that knob? Im looking for a new knob, but i want somthing that looks stock and isnt tacky. I havnt decided if i want a heavy counterweight one or not tho

Also, the thing about your friends real BRM being too hard to get into gear compared to yours, yours is heavy, so his mighta been a light one or stock one... that makes a difference

[ThuG LyFe]

i considered getting the AMS hammer but hated how every one of them seemed to slant a lil to the right. does urs do that too?

i rather get the nismo shiftknob that's wrapped in leather and has the logo on the center. costs around 50 bux tho.

[YOUNG240SX]

nice man hope everything goes well with it.im pick my b&m short shift 2marrow for 70 used but still not bad

[Emperor_Tha]

I had the megan racing. Its the exact same as your. Shifting was smooth, nice short throw. The only problem I had was the bushing went badafter 1.5k miles and I couldnt get into reverse. Then it blew up my transmission after, too late to find out it was the bushing. I probably end up getting a new bushing since it was a nice shifter.

[StricNyne]

cusco makes a metal one for i think 10 bux

[Thoughtful_One]

Wow, I'm kinda surprised this thread didn't get as much attention as it did.

Plus, no custom title??

[94_240sx]

cusco makes a metal one for i think 10 bux

No, it's more like $40 shipped or something like that. It's an aluminum piece.

I had to drop one side of transmission mount to get to the front 2 bolts. It wasn't fun.

[White Comet]

nice review, i find it kinda hard to believe that this is better then a b&m. the best way to tell whats better is to try different shifters on teh same transmission

[coolestandy007]

Good review. I guess with these ebay items you have a 50/50 chance of complete awesomeness or total failure. I just bought one and I'm going to take this thread as a sign that I will thoroughly enjoy my brand spanking new "Real B$M MISNO Short shifter" from ebay.

[darens13]

hey man nice knob , but seriously looks good.

[Tulsa_S-13]

Glad to see your like the AMS Hammer, Vivek.

Nice review.

[Thoughtful_One]

Just as an update, the shfter is still firm.

There is a VERY FAINT rattle during deceleration at around 2700, but other than that, redline pulls are quiet

[white90esex]

nice write up.

A long time ago when I first started messing with my car I had got one of those first generation megan short throws. It clamps onto the stock plate... im sure you have all seen them.

Anyways. Ive been driving my SRed dayly driver for the past year and recently got my other car running thats got the short shifter.

Just the feel up a solid short throw IS amazing... I know exactly how you feel.

Some day ill upgrade to that style though, those werent available when I bought mine.

[turbo240zed]

I modified a 240SX five speed to work in my '73 240Z, and I bought one of these B&M knock-off short shifters for it too, and I thought I'd share some of my experiences with it. I've read many posts about these shifters rattling, even on the genuine B&M ones, and sure enough, mine did too, and really bad. Cruising was ok, but under acceleration, it was terrible! Strangely enough, nobody seemed to have figured out a solution. It didn't take me long to discover what the problem is...

There's an aluminum sleeve on the shift lever that you can see in this picture just below the shift knob.



The sleeve is held in place by a snap ring at the top...



If you remove the snap ring, you can slide the aluminum sleeve off the shaft. BTW, this makes installing the lower boot much easier.



With the sleeve off, you can see there are two rubber o-rings on the shaft. I'm guessing this is an attempt to provide some vibration damping. However, as you can see, there is a step in the diameter of the shaft to stop the sleeve from sliding any further down the shaft. This results in metal to metal contact, and consequently, the aluminum sleeve rattles against the shift lever.



To fix this, I used a 1/2" rubber o-ring and slid it down the shaft to the step in the shaft. Unfortunately, the only o-ring I had handy is 0.1" thick, and I couldn't get the snap ring on after I reinstalled the sleeve. So, I just machined 0.1" of the sleeve. Another option would be to use a thinner o-ring, a sheet of rubber, or some silicone or "GOOP." The idea is just to eliminate the metal on metal contact.



This completely eliminated the rattling! For $80 or whatever it was, this shift lever works great. Unlike Thoughtful_One, I didn't even have to drill a new mounting hole, as all of mine lined right up. So, I guess there's either a variation in the transmissions (mine is from an S13), or the quality control for these things is not so great. I'm guessing it's a quality control issue.

I have to agree with Thoughtful_One about replacing the bushing at the end of the shift lever. I didn't and the bushing popped off in the transmission But I just removed the shift lever, and I was able to fish it out. I bought a new Nissan one after that. If you need to remove the shift lever for any reason, all you need to do is remove 4 counter sunk screws from the retainer plate. But before you pull the lever out, make sure you remove the two springs and plungers (upside down counter sunk screws). Otherwise you risk having them fall under the car, or worse, into the transmission.



Here's what the shift lever looks like removed from the transmission.



This is a shot down into the transmission.



I've love to see some pictures of a disassembled B&M shifter to see how they compare...

I hope all this helps somebody...

Nigel'73 240ZT

[Soravia]

What is this DSM you guys are talking about. It looks like an SE-R shifter knob.

[tramp_drift240]

like talons and stuff. theyre DSMs.

[Soravia]

Why not just Eclipse knob?

I like that design though. Feels a lot better in hand. I wish 350Z and RX-8 came with that design.

[tramp_drift240]

i like the stock shifter.

ive got the SE leather wrapped knob on my b&m. feels sweet.

[MastaYu]

sweet two writeup in one thread

[Thoughtful_One]

I figured I would come back to my review and update it. It's been close to half a year since I've installed the shifter, and it still shifts like the day I put it in. Super solid.

I didn't even see turbo240zed's comment until just now! I'll be doing that now when I have the time to get rid of very little rattling I have at the moment. Again, the only rattling that takes place is around 3000 RPM and is VERY VERY faint.

When I installed the shifter half a year ago, I didn't see any transmission fluid leaking out, but when I went under the other day, I saw it leaking out a little. I did use RTV, but I was a little hasty when tightening up the bolts, because I wanted to drive it so badly. I'll go in and retorque the bolts, then RTV the hole I drilled out (which is where I believe it's leaking from) when I have the chance.

All in all, it's an awesome combination, and WELL worth the money. Just do it the way I did it (the right way consisting of getting a new OEM bushing, RTV, and I would even buy a new lower rubber boot), and you'll be golden. No need to spend $200+ on something that does the same exact thing... I have to give credit to B&M for an awesome design (since the company I bought it from ripped it off), but it's not rocket science to develop a shifter and most S-chassis owners usually don't have deep pockets...

[ddgsxr504]

Why did you drill out the bolt hole? Looks to me like they line up. You are comparing the two holes that are side by side right, well on hole is on the right side of your old shifter plate and the one you re comparing it to is on the left side of the new one...wtf?

[Thoughtful_One]

It's kind of funny actually. When I saw that, I was wondering the same thing since I installed so long ago.

It's hard to tell but if you look at the 12th picture, all bolt holes are all at the same exact level as each other on the eBay shifter. I compared the left hole of the OE one to the right hole of the eBay shifter to show how far offset they were. I did it for picture's sake only. Can't compare them directly any other way.

[94_240sx]

With the sleeve off, you can see there are two rubber o-rings on the shaft. I'm guessing this is an attempt to provide some vibration damping. However, as you can see, there is a step in the diameter of the shaft to stop the sleeve from sliding any further down the shaft. This results in metal to metal contact, and consequently, the aluminum sleeve rattles against the shift lever.

That aluminum sleeve is made of plastic on B&M, so rattle is not coming from that sleeve on B&M. I believe that the rattle is coming from your transmission, not from shifter. I tried 3 different B&M shifters on 2 different s13s and that's what I'm thinking. B&M shifter magnifies the rattle a little more. I've added small hockey puck like plate to increase the tension on shifter, but didn't do anything. I've heard someone fixed rattle that way on eBay ****er though.

[turbo240zed]

That aluminum sleeve is made of plastic on B&M, so rattle is not coming from that sleeve on B&M. I believe that the rattle is coming from your transmission, not from shifter. I tried 3 different B&M shifters on 2 different s13s and that's what I'm thinking. B&M shifter magnifies the rattle a little more. I've added small hockey puck like plate to increase the tension on shifter, but didn't do anything. I've heard someone fixed rattle that way on eBay ****er though.

The rattle was 100% coming from the aluminum sleeve on my e-bay shifter, not from anywhere else in the transmission. It was clear and unmistakable. As soon as I made the o-ring mod I described above, the rattle was totally gone.

Nigel

[94_240sx]

The rattle was 100% coming from the aluminum sleeve on my e-bay shifter, not from anywhere else in the transmission. It was clear and unmistakable. As soon as I made the o-ring mod I described above, the rattle was totally gone.

Nigel

Oops! Sorry. My post was toward other guys, not you. It looks like there are about 4 different reasons for the rattle.

- From a bottom plastic bushing- From aluminum sleeve- From transmission itself- From ball joint on lower shift knob

[Thoughtful_One]

NEW UPDATE: And this one is not so good... (directed more towards the shift knob)...

My car has had a slight transmission leak, and since it is freezing out here in the Northeast, I decided to just fill the transmission through the shifter hole. This would buy me enough time to replace the rear seal on the transmission...

So I go to twist off the shift knob... It won't budge. I get my death grip on it and still it's rock solid. At this point I'm desperate, so I get a clamp on it and monkey wrench, and it still won't move!

I knew either the shifter or knob would be gone at this point so I drill a hole through the knob and put a screwdriver thru it. With some effort I get 2 turns, then it goes soft... I ended up shearing the threaded portion on the shifter, with the piece still in the knob...

While the shifter went on easy before, it was IMPOSSIBLE to take off...

Conclusion: Stay away from the 2G knob. While the shifter is rock solid, i know need to shift with the nub until I get a new shifter and knob... The threads are not the same, and don't let anyone tell you it's okay.

PS. Anyone have a shiftknob in good shape they are selling...?