Pardon the clutter from other works in progress but I finally got this up and running. I think it may have been the single most tedious project I have ever done on a car.
This is an
Enginetix Cybershift. Due to tariffs he no longer ships to the US and in fact I'm not even sure he's still around - I bought this at the end of 2024.
The install process involved completely removing the center console and shifter assembly (see Boomba's DIY video on how to install their shifter base bushings, which I did while I was in there). I bought a new aluminum lockout from Ron and a $6 aluminum lockout adapter on Amazon - I also had the Shift Solutions lockout, which I liked a lot better, but the threads are about 1/4" thick which lead to me not being able to get the shift knob on at a comfortable height. It also didn't like the lockout spring, it kept making a weird clicking noise when I tried to put it in reverse. This happened several times after installation and re-installation so I chalked it up to a design flaw. The $6 one played nice with everything so it won.
Okay so anyway, I had those two parts, installed them, mocked up a straight line down where the wiring harness was going to do, and used a friend's drill press to drill them out. I filed away a channel in the plastic reverse lockout mechanism under the shift boot for the wires to go through, cut away part of the collar that secures the shift boot to the lockout mechanism, and then snipped a tiiiiiiny hole in the top of the shift boot (redline goods) for clearance. I also snipped a little hole in the rubber washer that the lockout spring rests on. Once I had everything assembled and lined everything up on a work bench, I un-pinned one end of the connector and fished each individual 22awg wire through the holes/channel using a wire coat hanger and then re-pinned everything. I connected it all to make sure it still worked, then hot glued the connector in place because I never want to mess with this again.
I then drilled out the bottom of the center console (it is removable!) so I could run the USB cable into the little hub that's in there. I took this time to do the same with my phone cable, which I now have running up through the center console and coming out of the channel in the dashboard where the LED trim was on the pre-2016 cars (this is a much easier DIY I could write up). I tucked all the wires up nicely in the center console and reassembled everything. Before doing so, I learned that the new shift assembly was sitting slightly lower than the old one, preventing me from going into reverse as the lockout assembly wouldn't go high enough. I filed about 1.5mm of it off (as in Boomba's short shift lever instructions) and now it works fine.
This would have taken maybe two and a half hours total - including all the drilling and measuring - if I had not broken that god damn mother fucking piece of shit fucking flimsy plastic mother fucking shifter lockout mechanism that Ford made out of flimsy fucking plastic and does not fucking sell a replacement for. So this ended up taking two days while I waited for plastic weld to cure, then broke it again in another place, waited again for more plastic weld to cure, and then waited for a reinforcement of JB-Weld and two very small strips of steel to cure. If it ever breaks again I am going to shoot myself in the head.
Anyway, the reward for all of my hard work is: "heh heh heh big heavy shift knob lights up and looks cool."
