My fairly-new-to-me -6 conversion has a Patrick Motorsport linkage. I would politely offer that it's not their finest piece of work. One of its shortcomings is that the firewall bearing is a spherical bearing in an aluminum holder. Thus there's metal to metal contact and after what I think are less than 1800 miles there is noticeable wear on the shift rod/tube.

I can see the logic behind using a spherical bearing; it allows for any slight misalignment of the rod from horizontal. But the metal to metal contact is crazy.

Any thoughts on an alternative solution?

Mine uses a plastic spherical bearing but I open the ID to fit a stock tunnel shift rod. My unmodified bearing might fit in the PMS housing though.

I have the same PMS setup on my six. I think its the same as the one on speedway which is 3/4" ID. https://www.speedwaymotors.com/Firewall-Mou...-Size,6845.html

That’s a great find @Steve - looks identical. The shift rod is indeed 3/4” in diameter and the bearing’s OD is 1 7/16”. And note it’s meant for a steering shaft that merely rotates, not a shift rod that slides in and out.

@ChrisFoley , what are the dimensions of your bearing?

I have found products like https://www.igus.co.uk/product/391?artNr=EGLM-20 and https://www.igus.co.uk/product/381?artNr=EFOM-20 but they’re all either for 17mm or 20mm shafts.

My 6 converted vintage race car uses Chris's bearing and behind the firewall rod and shift console thingamabob. Lot's of fun well engineered stuff.

have same part works well,metal on metal that's just bad engineering ,the op could buy a larger od bearing and fit a pre-sized nylon bush,pretty sure you can find a bearing to do the job.
Good luck.

In the short term I’m tempted to get a small piece of Delrin play to replace the entire bearing. Longer term I’ll need something more permanent.

Check with PMS. I think they sell both shift rods. One for the stock bushing and one for the metal bearing. I am also curious if you could just use a stock shift rod and make it work with the CFR bushing and PMS shift rod to your side shifter?

They're IGUS KGLI-12, which I believe has standard dimensions just like the one used by PMS.