As the title says, I'd love to see your setups with how your short shifters / shift boots are set up in your Spiders!
The PO of my 124 installed a Michigan Short Shifter (It's a perfectly straight short shifter piece, no angle with the knob facing the driver, the pics that I've looked up indicate that maybe the Michigan Short Shifter is a little different?)
Anyway, I bought a new shifter knob and a new black leather boot from Auto Ricambi, and I was planning on installing it today! Sadly, between the poor excuse for a circle that's in the console shifter plate, the 50 year old shift boot retainer that's basically shaped like an octagon with fatigued corners, and the "taper" of the shifter boot, you could say that I'm having one hell of a time getting it to properly mount.
I feel like I may need to return this leather boot for something from a third party. The reason being is that if I install the boot at it's stock length, it's incredibly bunched up with the short shifter. The leather is also so stiff and bunched above the shifter plate that it feels like it's going to prevent smooth shifting into 2nd and 4th gears. On top of that, the shifter knob is pretty awkward to grab with the boot all bunched up around it. The knob looks like it's wearing a turtleneck.
If I pull more of the boot through the shift plate, two things happen. 1) The diameter of the boot gets slightly smaller as it gets higher, which makes it very difficult to get the shift boot retainer ring to expand. I haven't had any luck getting the ring to actually properly mount when I do this. 2) The excess material doesn't make it easy for the console plate to press down and fully close, which may cause more problems getting into gears at the bottom of the shift gate (2/4/R).
I'd love to see some of your setups if you've got photos of what your shifter/boot combos look like! Otherwise, feel free to chime in with what your setup is.
Cheers!