[GeeTwo]

It should work; you're still getting a better shifting force than with a servo. You may have difficulty shifting while driving hard. Without more specific details on how the shifting is done (e.g. ball, dog, and the anticipated torque and speed of the shaft during the shift) others' experience may correspond to comparing apples to cantaloupes. This is something you will probably just have to try out in driver practice. When you do this test, don't just set up a bare drive chassis; add an amount of weight similar to what your competition robot will have.

If you really like your design otherwise but can't get a large enough cylinder into position, you may be able to move the cylinder farther back along the axis, or move it to the side and use a lever to push/pull the shifter.