ok this is the problem...its probably an easy fix but i don t know...when i am taking off fast or shift hard...my shifter falls out of the floor and hits on the exhaust pipe....so i have to pull it back up, but it does this a lot, so what can i do to fix it?

thanks

 

weird. I had this happen to me yesterday when I was driving someone home

I thought I lost the ability to shift gears when it happened. luckily it still shifted so I was able to drive home. when I arrived home, I took the shifter/cup holder console off and found out that Mazda made one hell of a stupid design. the plate with the rubber piece, which holds onto the ball of the stick shift, has two rubber butts that are glued to the freakin' body. they were in such bad condition that they split apart from the center rubber piece. one piece was still glued to the body, and it looked like the left side had seperated long ago.

I didn't see any other way that shifter plate attached to the body. I swear that was one stupid call on Mazda's part.

so I'm driving my truck until I can fix the Pro.

I still haven't checked out the local parts store to see if they have the rubber piece or not. it might be a dealer-only part. I'm sure it's going to cost f'n $90 or more from the dealer.

I think I might devise a means to secure it myself. I don't want this to happen ever again.

though, from what you say, it sounds like it stays in place after you pull it back up, is that so? my doesn't. it just moves up and down freely

 

I just fixed mine this weekend, it had the same problem. You can still drive the car with the shifter falling out of place though, just have to get used to the different feel.
The part is around $90 or more from the dealer, just go to the junkyards and scrounge till you find a good one. I got mine for $10 and installed it in like 15 minutes!! You need a 12 mm socket, a 14 mm socket and a 12 and 14 mm wrench and a ratchet for the sockets. It's easy if you can get under the car.

 

Paying $90 for another piece of **** part that was badly engineered doesn't appeal to me.

Scrounging through the parts yards for the same piece will save some money, but I would know that later down the road I would have the same problem of the rubber falling apart.

I went to autozone and picked up some metal exhaust straps. I had to file the hole opening in the strap so that it would fit over the bolt studs in the shifter plate. I think I used a 5-6 inch long piece. I put one strap across the front bolts. If you want to do this yourself, take not not to have the strap go under both shifter rods. I only have it strapped against the rod that is connected to the shifter plate (so that the rod connected to the shifter itself can move freely).
It's holding up pretty good now. I may decide to put a second strap across the back bolts, but it may restrict the movement of the bottom half of the shifter plate too much and may cause more problems. Shiting now feels a lot more firm (which is a good thing), I'll say that.

The metal exhaust strap cost about $2.00. A pretty good bang-for-your-buck fix!

I'll try to take a few pics of it this weekend and post them up so you can see how I fixed it.

 

Here are the pictures I said I would take and put up.
The oil you see on the shifter rods is from an old oil leak I had from the oil pan, which I have since fixed.

It's just a metal exhaust strap that I bought from Autozone. I'm sure you can find something similar at any local auto parts store.
For the one I bought, I had to file the holes in the strap out just a tiny bit so they would fit over the bolts. Also, there is a rubber gasket that sits between the shifter plate and the chassis. I put the strap under this. When you do it yourself, you'll see what I mean when you take the shifter plate down. Don't put the strap on too loose or hot air will blow past the rubber seal. Trust me, if you do a lot of driving, and you have the windows closed, the cabin will become hot after a short time.

For those of you that like detailed pictures, I'll include links for the hi-res pics, too.

Later on.

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Pic 1

Hi-res

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Pic 2

Hi-res

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Pic 3

Hi-res

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Pic 4

Hi-res