I had my shifter out of the car tonight and noticed something interesting. If you've ever removed the shifter - to add oil for example in the S1 Cars - you'll be familiar with the three 10mm bolts that hold the shifter into the gearbox.

Well those three bolts actually bolt into a sort of small tower shaped casting which in turn is held to the gearbox itself with FOUR 12mm bolts.

I found those bolts to be very loose - surprisingly loose. So I backed them off and re-torqued them with a short handled 1/4" drive ratchet. I can't find a torque setting for them but as they're into alloy you'd be wanting to just nip them up tight rather than heave real hard on them.

Anyway, shifts are much nicer now! See pic - only three are arrowed as the fourth is behind and at the back as such, but you can get to them all from above via the transmission tunnel - as you do for the shifter mountings - so check them next time you're in there.

 

Interesting. I'll have to check those out this weekend. Did you Locktite them? A bit of blue Locktite will keep them from backing out again. Or you can safety-wire them if you're cool.

 

at this time no I didn't use the loctite but I'll be back in there to change the gearbox oil at Xmas time anyway so I'll certainly do so then.

 

Duly noted. I will be doing a tranny fluid change on a friends 8 that I have in my possession right now, I will check it out.

 

good find - thanks for sharing

 

Someone report back if their bolts are loose too. I am only 500 miles into my fluid so I am not taking apart the center console anytime soon.

 

Yeah its going to be interesting to see how common this issue is - BTW I should mention that I have 65k Klms on the car - about 40,000 miles.

 

Just checked both transmissions I have here.
Both were tight.

 

Same here, on both of my trannies.
Maybe you just forgot to tighten them back the last time youchanged your transmission fluids?

 

no its not that - they've never been touched before this incident.