I have a made in the usa bm street rod shifter in my t bucket 189.99 from speedway motors only starts in park push stick down to go to rev an park detents im happy with the shifter an the price
I decided to buy one at Turkey Run this past week. The dealer had Lokars at $179 and the American Shifter at $ 159. It wasn't the $20 buck difference that swayed me but I looked them over, shifted both, and felt no real difference. We have a couple of Lokars and a Gennie already in use and they are ok, but have their issues too and are far from perfect, so I fgured I would take a chance on the American for my new rpu project. I'll have more to say about the quality when I actually get the car on the road, but my last Lokar dropped down into second on hard bumps and started in gear sometimes. I fixed the drop down thing by tightening the jam nuts but never could get the neutral safety switch adjusted to only start in park. Don
Bought one for my C6 and they are CRAP !!!!!!!!!! Parts that should be threaded aren't,other parts missing, fitment issues. Apart from that they are great.
I got 2 in the other day to check them out, we WERE a Gennie Shifter dealer (and of course we have lots of Lokar now). Same as Don, I'll fit one to a friends car to see how they go, They offer them in dual action, so side detent like Gennie or button like Lokar. They are a little cheaper than Lokar, so to some guys that will be enough to sway them
WOW.....here we go. A Chinese website with an American Shifter that is made in China. http://www.autotri.com/productShow.asp?cid=119
Ah! G.I., I buildee you number one floor shifter, all product number one, number two is sh*t. Mamma san Coughman
I know this thread is near 3 months dead, but I have ran across a similar problem in other threads as well. I am in the process of looking for valid and first hand info on a product. In this case the American Shifter Co. products. Then many people here, whom have no or very little experience with the product, or it's parent company, insist on bashing the product because it isn't made in America. I'm all for buying in house, and could never be bashed for being anti-American as I am in the US Army. However, America has doomed itself into offering just as sub-par a product (nobody specific) as any overseas maker. Just because a part is made in America, doesn't mean the person making it is a bleed for this country die hard who is going to pour blood sweat and tears to make sure you, the paying customer, gets this superb product with a 99% defective free product. Most people join jobs mainly because, they NEED a job. They can care less where they work, what they make or sell, and wind up appreciating or hating a product based on their work and management experiences, and not the product itself. I'm not saying that American Shifter Company, whose name is blatently refering to America and is selling a foreign made product, is a good product. It's just a shame that many people continually make the same baseless claims so others have to dig through pages of crap to find one or two true first hand claims of product knowledge.
Another case in point is Lokars shifters. I have read claims that they were using a grease that froze in sub tempuratures, and had buttons that rattled and annoyed customers. This I hear was a long ago problem, that has been corrected, I'm sure do to customer complaints. However, there aren't any hate threads about Lokar for being an American company selling Americans a product that isn't up to standard, why? Case in point, Americans and American companies can offer just as sub standard a product as any foreign country. Americans just love to use the, you get what you pay for, phrase to justify why we get, at times, overpaid and overcharged to produce such products.
great comparison piston head!!!!! ive always been a pro gennie shifter guy and was one of there bigger shifter dealer had sales here on the hamb and gave shifters away. any way your bottom line was "quote" Conclusion The american shifter parts are all marked patent pending and it is clear who ever designed this reinvented the shifter and made it install and operate better as they one upped the lokar and gennie shifters in most cases. The shifter looks like no other shifter I ever seen before, and works pretty dame good. Ratings #1 American Shifter #2 Gennie #3 Lokar what you said is true im sure some one who worked at one of the athere companys had a BIG time influence in the building of this shifter i know first hand because hes a friend of mine thanxs alex well i start running these shifters and selling them well im still on the fence , only because i sell what we run in our cars
Geez, I'm glad I read this thread through to the end where an actual product review was posted. I was getting a bit frustrated scrolling through all the company-bashing posts to try and figure out which shifter might work for me. Before you jump on me, I get the company-bashing, I've been guilty of it myself. But to bash a company who makes their parts in China in 2012 is absolutely, well, ignorant. Where do you think those computers you're using are manufactured? What about your precious phones? What about those stereos you put in your cars? Hell, half the American cars are manufactured in another country! I get that a single company might be responsible for making some crap products, but to bash an entire company because they've had to play on the world market in order to be competitive is just plain ridiculous. If you don't like that American companies are outsourcing, guess what? You should probably throw away 90% of everything you own because YOU (the consumers) are responsible for these corporations looking outside our shores to be able to supply customer demand at low prices like their competitors. Unfortunately, all I hear is a "holier than thou" tone in this thread that has possibly drowned out any real product-specific information to those looking for real solutions for their hotrods. I appreciate "consumer-beware" posts, but this sounds like a bunch of "me too's" tooting their own horns. Flame away. (first post, but long time lurker)
Just installed an American Shifter on my C4. I bought one a couple years ago at a trade show for a pretty good price. 125 I think. Just now getting to try it out. I have done a Lokar on a C4 previous and really liked it. Well by looking at the American shifter, it looks very nice. Well put together package and the parts are solid and well machined. Installation was a problem. First the bracket that bolts to the tail shaft top 2 bolts would not fit at all. There was too much metal around the bolting holes to fit flush once it was tightened. I had to grind off quite a bit off the insides of both side the get it to fit in properly. Next the side bracket that attaches to the servo housing bolt was 1/2 short of the hole! The drivers side was fine and the backbone plate was square and in the correct position. When looked at it, the bracket has a sort of a Z bend in it so i unbent some of it to stretch the Z out a bit and was able to get it to reach from this mod. Im to the point of mounting the actual Shifter but am having to wait a couple days for some other things to happen. So my first impression is to say the least, disappointment. Once I get it all connected I'll post a working review too.
You have to feel sorry for a Chinese Company that is told to make something for a price. http://www.autotri.com/ must make goods for the Hoffman Group yet they also want to make a product and sell it and cut out the middleman (Hoffman Group) so they must see the feed back about poor quality. Like many Chinese Companies they can see quality sells and they can also see being pushed for a price does not produce quality.
I have to agree with Gambino. The adjustability made me go with the American Shifter. Installed no easier or harder than any other shifter Ive bought in the past. Been in the car few years now trouble free. This thread is just like the points / Petronics thread. Everyone will have there own opinion. I just hate it when people who have no DIRECT experiance with a product have to chime in with "my buddies brothers dog sitters boyfriend had a problem' type of answer. How many of you guys have Bear Claw Latches? Do you like them? Everyone I know that has them does. Guess who owns them. The Hoffman Group. Quick take em off your car, theyre crap! ;-)
http://www.autoloc.com/ any advertisement with this layout and lettering style belongs to them. They usually have the first few pages in many car magazines. They sell the lambo door kits, bear claws, some wiring harnesses, knobs and buttons, etc. Most of their products wouldn't go with the HAMB design style. I have never bought any of their stuff, can't go one way or the other in the arguement.
While I still don't have my rpu on the road to be able to give a better update on how the American Shifter I bought works, I have installed it on the transmission and shifted it through the gears a bunch of times. To be honest, it is no better or worse than the Lokars I have had in that regard, feels pretty much the same. The detents are positive and I was able to use my Lokar knob adapter to put on a nicer knob that I had. The installation was straightforward, the instructions were good, and all the parts were made well. I ran into no problems at all with it and they give you about twice as much threaded rod as you need so it should work with any setup you might have. The parts were packed and protected well in a styrofoam innerliner an nothing was missing. Would I buy another one ? I will know better when I start driving the car but right now I would say yes. Lokar makes a lot of stuff we use and like but their shifter is not significantly better than this one enough to make me want to buy another one. I never could get their neutral safety switch to work right 100% of the time, no matter what I did, so that kinda turned me off to a Lokar shifter. Don
America Shifter ripped off both of these guys. I bought mine off Amazon for cheaper than anywhere else I could get one. Opened the box, immediately thought "wow, this thing looks quality" When it came time to install it, thats when everything went to shit. Nothing fit (I'm running a powerglide by the way) When I called their tech line I was told by their self proclaimed "tech genius" that the specific Powerglide that I was using was "too old" to use with their shifter. Heres the thing, my powerglide came out of a Vega....too old???? I figured its probably cheaper to find a powerglide that this thing will work with rather than eat my total investment. So I bought a complete '64 Impala just for the tranny. Kept the motor and scrappd the carcass. Anyways, I still had to modify the brackets AND the shift arm to fit the tranny. The guys on the tech line were of no help what so ever. After I got it all installed and back on the road I am still having issues with it. The Park lock out does not work, and there is no adjustment for it. Whats happening is the piece that the button activates slides down, then does not return all the way. Its not the button that causes this, it is their design and clearances. I'm sure this makes no sense without pictures. Would I buy one for my next car... no friggin way. Good news is I noticed a Gennie Shifter ad in the current Rod and Kulture magazine.
No they sell cheap Chinese versions that if you search a bit have been nothing but a problem for most users as in they pop open all the time. Hoffman recently patented the name so no one else can call latches bear claw anymore. It doesn't mean that Hoffman makes all the Bear claw style latches being made. There are many other good quality "Bear Claw" style latches out there that work and are safer than the shit ones Hoffman sells.
A few on the HAMB sell Bear Claws and good quality ones as well. I have had Bear Claw latches from Watsons Street Works and have found them to be A1.
I beleive you would have to copywright the name "Bear Claws" not patent it. A patent usually involves substantial changes to a existing design. That would be hard on a fairly simple design that's been around for a for substantial period of time. They could maybe put "Patent Pending" which doesn't mean they'ld get a patent. Just me being anal.
I gotta agree with Gambino's, I've used and install both on my cars and customer cars and haven't had much in the way of "problems" with either. I noticed that some of the brackets on the American shifter were not as accurately drilled and needed some adjustment to make fit. W eve installed a LOT of Lokar shifters in everything from Camaros to 23 "T"s and they adapt well and very high quality. My complaint is customer service...American shifter has none, nada...they suck at shipping for the most part and good luck sending it back, if you ever get it. Aside from that I kinda like the side select... wish Lokar would add it to their offerings.
Hoffman group owns the name "bear claw" as referring to door latches. Hoffman sells Autoloc brand, made in China. Hoffman did not invent or design anything different than already existed for many years. They just claimed the name as theirs. I sell made in USA bear claw style latches. Over 1000 sets sold all over the world and *zero* returns. Never any quality problems. I have sold several sets of latches to people to replace poor quality chinese latches. My latches solved their problem, so it was the part and not installation. I sell for cheaper than Autoloc does. I am home based small business, not a big corporation keeping lawyers employed. Draw your own conclusions.................
No experience with the shifter (not planning on even bothering), but I have made tens-of-thousands of dollars removing other failed products from The Hoffman Group, and replacing them with good quality parts. Google them, read what you find, and make your own judgements.
I was also trying to think of your details when I posted. I see the Watsons Street Works version they have had to change the name to Gator style latches.
Right before I saw this thread yesterday I bought a Lokar auto shifter and boot, even tells me what gear I'm in, get it today. Don't know about it yet but I'm into it for about $400 so I hope I'm happy. Since they're made 10 miles from the house gonna try them. Gotta keep Tenn. green.
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