homemade auto floor shifter tech??

[alteredpilot]

anyone have any tech on building one?
thanks

[Upchuck]

I'd like to see one also!

[manyolcars]

I looked at the advertisements and pictures for Lokar and I have made two so far. No, I'm not gonna go pull up the floor and take pics. Just look at their ads.

[Mass Butcher]

I just used a MR Gasket universal shifter. Very simple design, and cheap (about $50). It comes with all the hardware you need for any auto trans, and you can modify the shifter handle based off of the existing one. It works off of one rod for linkage, and the only detent is when its in park, but it does work pretty smooth, and like I said, easy to modify.

[Chopped50Ford]

What about for a 3 speed shifter, especially the early ones?

What do most people use, for example; say you only have a side loader and want to make it a floor shifter.

[praisethelowered]

I am doing this right now because I have to use a floor shifter and cable set up for a mid-engine truck. I ordered the least offensive B&M Uni-matic and hope to be able to cut off the lever and weld on something older. That way I should have a lockout and detents for park and reverse of some kind. I have never really looked at how B&M shifter work before. My only experience is with chucking one of those goofy t-handle ones in the trash that came on a car I bought once. I hope it works.

Anybody done this?

[Mass Butcher]

praisethelowered the B&M is identical to the MR. Gasket. They come with enough braketry to make it work. The 2 rods they supply kinda suck and depending on where your shifter is mounted in relation to the tranny lever you'll have to bend the rod up a little.I can take pics if needed, I just did it last weekend

[ray]

as i recall the B&M unimatic is Junk. note the capital J. you would be just as well off to start from scratch if you want any kind of detents.

[praisethelowered]

Damn, ray that is sort of what I feared I would hear. For the most part it seems like cable shifter=crap. But I want detents since this will be driven by my wife (whose life I value more than mine) Anyway, when I get it in my hands I'll check it out maybe I can beef it up somehow. Or maybe I'll just get a gennie and make cable brackets for it.

Anyway this post is supposed to be about scratch built ones. . . not jackasses like me trying to make cheapie universal shifters look cooler . . . anybody have pictures of home-made jobbers or at least adapted junkyard stuff?

[Zapato]

in my shoebox I'm using a floor shifter out of a volvo wagon, bolts on the floor.cut and extended the arm so that it ended with the rod holes as parallel and level with the arm on the trannyas possible. for an adjustable length rod used 2 long allen bolts. cut the head off one and ground on it so it would fit into the other bolts' head quick weld job made it a double ended pre threaded rod. a couple of heim joints completed the rod. heim ends will give adjustability make sure you use jam nuts to cinch it all together. pretty cheap to build and plenty reliable. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[kentucky]

I brought home a 79 Granada for parts today. It has a column shifted auto. One thing I noticed while giving it the once-over was it has a cable from the column to tranny, not linkage. Maybe you could find one in a junkyard and rob the detents etc out of the column and adapt them to floor shift? You can have mine but its here in Kentucky.

[Rocky]

I once bought a 49 ford pckup with a 289/C-4 and a homemade shifter. It was made from an old hurst 3 speed shifter handle with a hole drilled through it, down low for a pivot, Had a hunk of 1/4" strap welded to it under the car with a 90 degree bend in it to clear the tranny case. Had another hole in the end of it for a linkage rod to the tranny lever... no reverse lockout, no neutral safety switch and no detents,,,was a lawsuit waiting to happen but it worked. I only knocked the rear end out twice with it.
Go for a good one....it'll be cheaper in the long run..I know from experience.

[old beet]

Here is a real old one................OLDBEET

[old beet]

Brass turned handle on hex rod.........OLDBEET

[warbird]

No pics, but here's what I did.

Picked up a shifter out of a ??? at the Monroe swap meet for $5. Cut the mounting bracket off, made up one to fit an early Hydro and welded it on. Lengthened the shift arm, on the bottom of the shift lever, to get a better ratio. Made up an adjustable rod to connect shifter to tranny. Finally adapted a Genny Shifter neutral start switch to the back of the shifter so it'll only start in neutral. And used a Genny Shifter boot to cover the mess.

Sometimes ya just got to start cutting and see where it takes ya! http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Model A Vette]

Small FWD GM cars with automatics use a floor mounted shifter with cable. The larger sport models with floor shift are also cable actuated. Both styles can be easily adapted to rod use.

[Upchuck]

I got a nice one from a nissan minivan complete with the cable for 25.00 canadian dollars yesterday

just in the process of trying to hook it up, needing to make some custom bracketry for the cable end at the transmission

[nobux]

Praise the lowered, Look at the auto shifter from an old motorhome. I just picked one up for my cabover. They mount in the dash(in the motorhome) and the cable exits at the bottom.

[cadlights]

Here's an old Indy to get ya started if you're interested.
A ten spot plus shipping will get it to ya.
http://img78.photobucket.com/albums/v298/cadlights/shifter.jpg

[alteredpilot]

cadlights...pm'd ya

[burndup]

Upchuck wins the latest "Avatar I can't stop looking at" award!

[5w32]

here is my ansen shifter