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Based on the excellent advice here I removed he shifter shaft to clean and lube the lot, what a mess. At only about 15k miles the shaft was showing some wear through the metal finish and there was a ton of plastic bushing shavings in the housing.
Vacummed the crap out and cleaned the housing well, Green padded the shaft clean and coated the shaft and housing with aluminum high heat anti seize. Probably going to do this every spring instead of adding a grease fitting. Used blue loctite on all shafts, checked the torque on the transmission arm while I was there and put a little silicone lube and the shifter rod joints under those little boots.
I was was going to remove the rear shifter but left it but removed and plugged the toe arm with a metal plug and rubber o ring with super glue to see how it looks. It will make a good boot stop.
Ben, good job but a couple of things come to my mind...when you reference plastic shavings, I reckon you're saying that the shift shaft bushings in yours are machined from plastic? I thought on earlier ones, they were bronze and later they went to steel...but maybe yours is different for some reason, I don't know.
You used anti-seize, which isn't normally a substitute for a lubricant, like grease. If anti-seize works for you and you're happy, outstanding! A do agree with making that an annual task.
I agree with your intent to avoid future problems by lubing the shift arm joints, but the opinion of many folks is that those will fail at a bad time no matter what you do. I highly recommend that you get a couple of 5/16" X 24 female Heim joints from McMaster Carr ($6.00 each), Drag Specialties ($30 for two but they be chrome and bubble packaged attractively), or most any industrial supply house. Not only is this a permanent fix, but it gives your shifting a noticeably more precise feel.
Thanks Veekness and solid points. I figured that since the part is not lubed the antiseize would help as the shaft is crimping marred and it is high heat so it would not ooze out.
You got me on the shavings and I was surprised to see it. The bushing appears to be steel so I have no idea what that crap was in between the two bushings as they don't meet making a little void. I thought it might be from the rubber bushing on the outside but that does not make sense and I wonder if the bushings are inserted after the case is painted/coated?
i plan on replacing the shifter shaft with a more astectically please rod with better joints soon. I assume the fail partially as they are not lubed but agree they look prettty weak.
I used to work on helicopters in the army and some tail rotor drive shafts had a rubber seal on the shaft bearing. We would used grease in a syringe and needle to get in there on a hard to reach bearing. There are many ways this shifter assembly could be redesigned to last forever for like $10 more at the factory.
Why steel bearing? Brass seems like a good choice like swing arms.
I've seen some discussion on this forum recently regarding the use of steel bushings in there in recent years. Not certain why the MoCo went for that. Regarding the shifter shaft, your plan regarding a more pleasing style is right on, they normally include Heim joints, like the CVOs do from the factory. In my case, I just wanted to use the OEM rod, and the McMaster Carr joints have a pleasing gold anodized look to them.
This is a good thread...a little different approach to a common problem.
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Lubed the shifter shaft and deleted shifter toe
