HELP: "Bitch Clip"

[ShortE36]

Hey Jess, jwm - thanks for all the tips. I haven't gotten to it yet but will in a few. I'm gonna head down to the garage now and try dropping it. I recently replaced the mounts so the 4 bolts on the bracket should be pretty easy to get off again.

[dave45056]

That is the best DIY I've seen on that clip

[ShortE36]

Hey Jess - so i finally got the clip off using jwm's technique of just banging at it from the side with a longer screwdriver. I ordered the Pelican Parts shifter bushing rebuild kit and now that I've got the clip off, the last remaining item is the 'u joint/coupler' (the one that attaches to the selector rod). The replacement one I got has a 1/4" pin that goes through and a circular clip that locks it in place but the one on the car doesn't look like that. It looks like the one in your pics. Do I even need to replace it? Following the Pelican Parts write-up, it says this one is important because it has that little spongy thing in there that contributes to 'slop' if it's worn out or disentigrated. Any suggestions?

[ShortE36]

OK I managed to get that coupler/u-joint out. Had to remove that circular clip/ring and getting the pin out was pretty easy. Used a short 1" nail with a big head on it and pushed down from the top and pulled it out of the bottom. Needless to say, the little yellow spongy thingy was not even present inside the u-joint. So now onto greasing everything up and re-assemble. I wanted to try the weighted cheapo shifter rod thingy from understeer.com but I've got too much momentum going now to stop and run to the store for solder. That and after reading the article, it won't really help in average day to day driving.

*EDIT: The new u-joint/clip that came with the pelican parts kit seems to replace the one that is on the car and I can see why. It would be much easier to pry out the flat circular clip versus the ring circular clip.