Swop Reverse and Drive Positions on the Stick Shift

[MikeinDenver]

Coming from driving manuals I also find the shift pattern to not be intuitive. Up is for D, back is for R. Every manual I have owned from an Acura Integra to a Dodge Ram all had that pattern.

[Nubo]

Coming from driving manuals I also find the shift pattern to not be intuitive. Up is for D, back is for R. Every manual I have owned from an Acura Integra to a Dodge Ram all had that pattern.

Half of the forward gears are to the rear, no?

We're selecting a gear, not telling to car to "go fetch" .

[nerys]

Only first gear counts the redt is just the pattern

[Zurc]

LOL. So.... getting back to the Nissan shifter.....
Out of idle curiosity I made it a point to figure out how the center console is put together and as the Staples big red button would say,
"THAT WAS EASY".
The shiny black top just lifts off, as it's being held down with spring clips.
The whole shifter assembly is held in a cozy bracket with two screws.
I haven't gone any further since I was on my way home at the time, but it looks like the whole shifter assembly can be rotated 180 degrees without changing or altering anything except perhaps the wire harness. It may cause a problem if its too short and or not centered on the bottom of the assembly which is where the actual switching takes place.
The whole thing is an interesting mechanical curiosity. Its worth the while to pop the lid and take a look at it.
You cant break anything doing it, unless your a total klutz. And you don't even need any tools to do it.
Another issue might be the shift knob itself. It is designed with a groove around the front to fit your fingers. I don't know how easy that will be to change around.( If at all).
I'll be taking a longer harder look at it as soon as I have enough time to play.

Zurc.

[ttweed]

Coming from driving manuals I also find the shift pattern to not be intuitive. Up is for D, back is for R. Every manual I have owned from an Acura Integra to a Dodge Ram all had that pattern.

Not every manual does. Many 3-speed floor-shift gearboxes were built back in the day with reverse forward and 1st gear back. The older Porsche 901 5-speed transaxle had 1st gear back and reverse forward. Many sequential manual boxes have reverse gear forward from the neutral position and all other forward gears a pull backwards from there. It's the driver's job to adapt to the controls of whatever car they get into--you can't expect every shifting mechanism to be the same, or even comply with whatever your perception of "intuitive" is! The Leaf arrangement has never bothered me. It took a matter of minutes to adapt to it, and I have never shifted into the wrong gear accidentally in 3.5 years of driving it. This complaint is a "tempest in a teapot." If Nissan had made the car turn left when you rotated the steering wheel clockwise, you would have a beef, but the arrangement they chose for the shifting mechanism conforms to the millions of automatic shifters with the standard PRNDL sequence, except they made P a pushbutton and there is no L gearing. Get used to it!

TT

[nerys]

Well remember it does not conform to standard prndl. The vast majority of tgose are clockwose counterclockwise motion. None of that type even go forward or back until you get the centrr console/floor shift style shifter.

Either way it is fun to discuss. I would prefrr it forward "just because" no beef no tempest just a preference and it beibg electronic means "I can" possibly have it my way instead of just accepting it.

So why quibble over it and instead discuss "how" to make that happen.

Spinnong it 180 is probably doable byt that is not elegant to me. I want to try to electrically flip it so I can keep the physical design facing forward.

[minispeed]

.... and here's what happens when you differ too far from the "norm" that most car buyers are expecting.

[Zurc]

I took a deeper look into the shifter set up and it looks like it might take a little more work than I had originally thought it might to rotate the shifter assembly around.

There's only one screw hole to the front of the top half of the shifter lever assembly and two to the rear. The top half cannot be rotated without drilling 3 new holes. So that's problem number one.
The whole shifter assembly is attached to the center well of the floor and I can't tell if it can be simply rotated or not as it would require more disassembly than just lifting the lid off. Would need to take the sides off to properly access the bolts. There's at least two to the rear of the shifter assembly that are accessible from the top but the front requires the side panels removed to properly access it..

IF there's two more to the front and the front bolts are aligned with the rear bolts, then its likely possible to just rotate the whole thing 180 DEG. Then the remaining two issues would be the Indicator light assembly and of course if you want the shifter knob rotated as well, then that's another detective story as it doesn't just pop off and I wasn't game to play with it. And because generally speaking, if something works, don't fix it.

To Nissan's credit, its fairly neat and tidy in there.

Zurc.

.

[nerys]

What about the board? Is it wires where we might be able to simply swap the wires so front becomes drive electrically? Or is it an integrated board at the shifter? (Much harder to mess with)

Btw that away from the norma car are those drive selector buttons in the wheel hub? If so that is pure awesome!

I love weird funky cars. The weirder the better.

[MikeinDenver]

Coming from driving manuals I also find the shift pattern to not be intuitive. Up is for D, back is for R. Every manual I have owned from an Acura Integra to a Dodge Ram all had that pattern.

Not every manual does. Many 3-speed floor-shift gearboxes were built back in the day with reverse forward and 1st gear back. The older Porsche 901 5-speed transaxle had 1st gear back and reverse forward. Many sequential manual boxes have reverse gear forward from the neutral position and all other forward gears a pull backwards from there. It's the driver's job to adapt to the controls of whatever car they get into--you can't expect every shifting mechanism to be the same, or even comply with whatever your perception of "intuitive" is! The Leaf arrangement has never bothered me. It took a matter of minutes to adapt to it, and I have never shifted into the wrong gear accidentally in 3.5 years of driving it. This complaint is a "tempest in a teapot." If Nissan had made the car turn left when you rotated the steering wheel clockwise, you would have a beef, but the arrangement they chose for the shifting mechanism conforms to the millions of automatic shifters with the standard PRNDL sequence, except they made P a pushbutton and there is no L gearing. Get used to it!

TT

Who still alive really drives a 3 speed floor shift? They bear no relevance in todays world. Those sequentials are not manuals. I was just making the statement that it is not necessarily intuitive. Also comparing the LEAF shifter to a standard PRND automatic is silly because they are nothing alike.