A little while ago I had posted that my Steeda short throw shifter bracket arrived in the mail, but stated that I was hesitant to change the throw because I am such a fan of how the stock shifter feels. I even wrote “The worst case scenario with this is I don’t like it, and just sell it on to a Mk3 owner that does want it”. I did just that.

However, I didn’t sell it because I didn’t like how it felt when installed. I went to put it in one evening; the install requires removing a fair bit from under the hood of the Focus. The final step of the teardown is to unhook the shifter linkage and that’s where the trouble was. Mine was extremely stubborn and would not come free. I fought with it for quite a while but felt I was at severe risk of breaking something with the force it was taking. This made me second-guess the install for the reason mentioned above (the shifter really does feel nice as it is) so I opted to put the Focus back together and leave it as it was.

I’ll admit this is a weak excuse for not installing the part, but I’m fine with it. Don’t fix what isn’t broken.

That said, the new owner (another Canadian) has it installed on his Mk3 and likes the reduced throw, so it went to a good home. Meanwhile, I’m happy with just my weighted shift knob.

As a bonus, the money I got back for the bracket covered the shipping of the latest purchase, which is expected to arrive early next week.

-Bill