Driver50x
Member
I had planned on mounting a Mustang II floor shifter in this thing. After I realized how much precious floor space that was going to use up, I switched gears on that plan.
I built myself a custom shifter assembly. All of the commercially available shifters that I saw place the shifter near the rear of the transmission. I wanted it towards the front of the trans for two reasons - 1) it frees up some foot room on the floor, and 2) it mimics the look of an old top loader transmission.
I made the main frame out of 1/2 inch square tubing, and the shift lever out of 1/2 inch round stock, and a few other metal scraps laying around the shop. I welded a 3/8th inch bolt to the top of the shifter, and screwed on an old cut glass door knob that was resting in one of my junk drawers.
It might be a little hard to tell from the pictures, but the shift linkage goes from the drivers side of the shifter back to a bell crank, and then forward to the transmission.
On the passenger side of the shifter I built a reverse lock out mechanism. It consists of a “slider” assembly that has a hole in it for park, and a slot for drive and neutral. The spring loaded pin is actuated by a cable (a bicycle brake cable) which will run to a knob located on the seat riser. This will prevent the shifter from being accidentaly bumped into reverse. It will also act as a theft deterrent. It will be impossible to get the car out of park without knowing how and where the release knob is.
I spent a good amount of time fiddling around with this thing, getting it to clear everything and getting the geometry worked out. I went through a couple design changes.
The final design is not real pretty, but it will be covered up anyway, and it works great. This is more fun to me than ordering a part from a catalog.
I built myself a custom shifter assembly. All of the commercially available shifters that I saw place the shifter near the rear of the transmission. I wanted it towards the front of the trans for two reasons - 1) it frees up some foot room on the floor, and 2) it mimics the look of an old top loader transmission.
I made the main frame out of 1/2 inch square tubing, and the shift lever out of 1/2 inch round stock, and a few other metal scraps laying around the shop. I welded a 3/8th inch bolt to the top of the shifter, and screwed on an old cut glass door knob that was resting in one of my junk drawers.
On the passenger side of the shifter I built a reverse lock out mechanism. It consists of a “slider” assembly that has a hole in it for park, and a slot for drive and neutral. The spring loaded pin is actuated by a cable (a bicycle brake cable) which will run to a knob located on the seat riser. This will prevent the shifter from being accidentaly bumped into reverse. It will also act as a theft deterrent. It will be impossible to get the car out of park without knowing how and where the release knob is.
I spent a good amount of time fiddling around with this thing, getting it to clear everything and getting the geometry worked out. I went through a couple design changes.
