While the seats were out I installed the reverse lockout from pboedker. The gearshift boot was too stiff which lifted up the lockout rendering it always unlocked so I installed a small spring to apply some downward pressure. Not the prettiest but functional.
Hi John,
I actually had another buyer with the same problem. It appears my own gearshift boot is old and flexible whereas a new boot is much stiffer and would like to 'sit low' as in your photo. The length of the reverse lockout was made to fit the lengths of my gearstick and gearshift boot so that the rubber clips into the groove at the top. I can see that the lockout handle would need to be shortened to fit a new boot.
I took some pictures of my shifter and had an email correspondance with the other buyer which I will try to fill in below to explain what can be done to make the reverse lockout 'disappear' inside the rubber boot.
I hope that helps.
"In neutral, the distance between the liftup handle and the nut/gear knob is 30mm. The rubber boot is stretched some, it helps keep the liftup handle down when in neutral, but it can still be lifted easily.
You can just pull the liftup handle through the top of the rubber boot or insert it from the top. That way you can experiment with how much it is too long and/or how much the rubber boot will stretch. I was expecting that the gear sticks and boots could be of different sizes, and the length of the tube itself is not critical, as long as it is pulled downwards in neutral and the driver must positively lift it to clear the bracket when selecting reverse.
I attach another photo of the rubber boot top pulled down a little on the liftup handle. The rubber boot actually doesn't shrink very much but instead lifts the handle a little. The photo is with the gear stick in neutral, but it only needs a tiny bit of lifting to clear the reverse gate bracket."