Gear Shift Lockout Broken on 355

Here is the problem - When shifting to the left towards the 1st gear/2nd gear gate there is supposes to be some resistance to prevent you from shifting too far left before moving up or down into the gate for the proper gear. Additionally there is supposed to be a lockout feature for reverse that requires you to push down on the handle before engaging reverse. Both the resistance and the lockout appear to have disappeared from my car. Finding 1st and 2nd gear is difficult and a mishift into reverse is possible. There is still resistance when moving to the right so the sift lever still centers properly.

The cause - not sure, but it may have had something to do with my installation of carbon fiber bits in the center console. I replaced all the sticky stuff with carbon fiber and when everything was reinstalled, the problem appeared. I'm not sure what I could have done. I took the ball off the stalk to remove the metal gate and the melting console piece, but other than that I didn't apply any pressure or move the shift lever at all.

Any ideas on what I might have done to cause this? What is the fix?

 

Thanks everyone, this helps me understand how the mechanism works. The stick will move down if I press on it. I have not measured the travel, but it feels the same as before. I'll do some disassembly tonight, snap some pics, and report back .....

 

Here is a picture of console installed. Looks great, but there is a problem with the design ....
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This shot shows that the gate is OK. There is a small amount of wear on the bottom peg but not nearly enough to be a problem. (OK, its a bad pic but take my word for it)
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The problem is that the carbon fiber piece does not allow the gate to fall deeper into the cavity, thus the shift lever slides under the stops as though it were pushed in. You'll notice in the first pic that the top surface of all the pieces line up nicely. The design flaw is in the lowest edge where the gate rests. It is too shallow. One thing you can't see in the pictures is that the black plastic spacer that goes immediately under the gate and rests on top of the screw holes floats freely in space. In other words the gate does not drop low enough to come in contact with the piece. Ideally the gate, the spacer, and the screw holes would all be touching one another. In this case the gate sits too high.

I took some pics that show how the lever slides under the stop when fully erect and how it looks when pushed in but I am having some trouble loading the pics. This validates that the lever is working correctly. I'll try again to upload them tomorrow night.

I see three options to fix the problem:

1) Get the supplier to send another piece from a corrected mold
2) Weld extensions onto the gate shifter stops
3) Shave the bottom ridge off the carbon fiber piece. This will allow the gate to slide through the carbon fiber and rest on the black plastic spacer where it should. This might be the best design for the supplier but I worry about doing a good job modifying the piece myself.

Obviously option 1 is the best. I'll show this thread to our F-chat sponsor and see what they can do. It's a beautiful piece so I hope they can make this right.

Thanks again for all the help.

 

Thanks John, I appreciate the quick response. As stated, the pieces look fantastic. After seeing them in place I certainly don't want to go back to stock!