Auto Shift Lever

I do a lot of rallies with my '84 400i and during those rallies I often manually downshift D to 2, some of those shifts may be done "in anger"! During the Mountain Mille in October, I found the shift linkage a bit sloppy sometimes to the point where motor would not start when it appeared to be in N. This was lower down my list of winter R&R but it made it to top of list this weekend.

I first checked everything top side and there was absolutely no play in any of the linkage seen from the top with the shift plate off. When I went underneath, the large amount of play was very clear. See the diagram below; the green line points to the location af all of the play. Part #35 does not seem to be present, "bocalla elastica", elastic washer??
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Rather than trying to locate the part, maybe same on a GM car, I found a hard plastic sleeve and cut it to a useful length, the ID and OD were about perfect to give maybe 1-2 mm of play. Note that rod #44 is about 6 mm in diameter and the hole in part #45 is about 20 mm. So you can see that I had a LOT of slop in linkage. It was an easy install and I thought I was done at least short term. Instead when I got back in the car the lever was in Park and I could only get to P and R, the lever would not go past R even with lever #9 depressed. Part #10 is clear of any stops on part #12. So I have two questions:

1. What does part #35 look like? hard rubber? I'm sure I can order the part from Summit racing if not a Ferrari source.
2. Any idea why eliminating this play prevents me shifting past "R"?
Thanks in advance. Ken

 

Thanks, I can get bushes near by. I think the piece I used is too rigid and is not allowing any "give".

 

I have 2 bushes on order; it will be about a week to get them.

I have the lever shifting thru all gears now by playing around with linkage underneath. The homemade bushing took out almost all longitudinal play but it still allowed lateral play. I think the rod was hitting a piece of heat insulation that has come undone from the chassis. It should be easy to work out when I get the new bushing it.
Ken