for my hot rod Ford! I gotta Hurst shifter handle adapted to my T-5 but I want a handle a little longer and a different curve. Can I get round stock from the big-box stores?? Also what diameter would work best? Thicker would be better but.......harder to heat and bend. This will be a shade tree operation so......bending flat bar is out and stainless won't get hot enough to bend so it looks like round stock. I'm sure some of y'all have done this!!! What diameter stock did you use? Thanks 6sally6
Why not find an old 4-speed shifter from a truck? They're made of some tough stuff. It would be tapered and might already have the bends that would work for your Ford.
Maybe a Ford swan shifter. It would give you height and bends plus where you modify it to attach it to the T5 shifter can be hidden under a boot.
The shift handle on the T5 in my bird is from some old generic 3 speed my buddy found in the trunk of a project he bought. The chrome was good, we just eyeballed, it cut it, and welded a plate on to bolt to the T5. I got lucky, but finding an old handle as suggested above is a cheap start. Only the restoration guys can tell it's not the original 3 speed shifter. Worth way too much to cut up.
I have taken old 3 and 4-speed truck shifters, heated the end red hot and pounded them down flat. After drilling two holes, they bolt om where any Hurst style stick would. Strategically applying heat allows for any shape you want. I get my shifter bases here: https://core-shifters.com/
"Big box store" material = No. That's normally junk material and also, I've never seen that they carry large enough material. Plus you need something hard or "hardenable" material. After bending it, heat the whole thing red hot, then cool it semi-quickly with water spray. A big bucket of oil would be best, but the next best would be some sort of light spray, to cool is quicker than air cool, but not as fast as a "dunking" into water cool. This will make it stiffer and not prone to bending when you shift hard. Mike
I'm not sure how big your shade tree is, but you could use flat plate and saw out the shape without bending a thing. Like I said though, I don't know what your limitations are.
I would say the hardest thing will be the taper, unless you have a lathe of course. to solve that I would do like others have said get an old shifter form something and start with that.
Who says stainless won't get hot enough to bend? I made a shift lever for an OT 66 Chevelle I had out of stainless round stock to mimic the stock shifter. Don't remember the diameter, but it was fairly thick, and like the original shifter, it wasn't tapered at all. It took a lot of heat, but it will bend with some effort. And being stainless, it polished up just like chrome!
I have bent Hurst handles cold, the one in my Ford is a recent one. The chrome plating did crack, but the boot covers it. Old round Hurst truck handles were around . 50" and round. You may have to make up an adapter if you can find one. The Core Shifters idea is a good one, I got stuff from them on eBay.
At one of the shows here a few years ago a fella had used one of a pair of horse harness hames with the brass ball on top for a shift handle. He had cut off all of the rings and other crap so it was just a shallow S-shaped deal. Some of them are kinda bulky but there are slim ones out there. The lower part is usually hollow steel with a tapered oval profile, and the brass ball can be polished enough to shine like a diamond in a goat's ass.
I had an OT truck that I made a shift lever for. I just use a good piece of DOM tubing and bent it. Welded a nut to the botton for attatchement. EZ...
The coolest adapted shifter handle I've seen was an artificial hip joint used by a friend of mine like this one.
Why is bending flat bar out? Its just a matter of putting it in a vice, heating it up and pulling it around, then hammering or grinding the thickening on the inside of the bend back down and blending the slight thinning on the front side. To taper my shifter handle (powerglide), I drilled a hole the diameter of the rod in a piece of wood and clamped it to the drill press to hold the rod straight. Then I used my 4.5 inch grinder to start the process. Next I used roofing nails to attach file board paper to a piece of 2x3, starting with 36 or 40 grit and worked my way up. 220 to 400 was on a sanding block. To finish it I used strips of wet and dry (all the way to 2000) for polishing.
Made mine out of 3/8 SS flat bar , cut & bent to shape , welded a 3/8 SS bolt in the end to screw the shift knob on , as gas been said ,takes heat to bend SS !
When I was in the process of building the Ranch Wagon I too considered having a shiftier that had a look and fell of something more utilitarian, I found some round stock at one of the big box store and heated it and bent it to to the desired shape to clear the bench seat. BTW, a golf ball made a neat shiftier knob when I was getting a feel for the T-5 transmission. I thought it looked pretty good during the early stage of the build, I tend ran across a old Hurst shiftier from my Falcon I had back in the mid 60's , I was able to cut & modify it for a perfect fit. My reason for going that route is the wagon has a lot of parts from cars I have had in the past and it just made sense. HRP
I've modified more than one chrome Hurst shift lever with no heat. As long as the 'rebending' is minor, there's no metal fatigue or chrome flaking. I used a bench vise and brass blocks, 2 on one side and 1 on the other side in between. I didn't have access to a press. Because of the flat shape of Hurst levers, it's likely best just for left/right tweaking. But I probably wouldn't have a problem bending mild steel, round bar cold, as long as it's less than 45 degrees or so. If you have a torch for heat, that's great. For single bends, the vice method and a critical eyeball will do ya. Compound bends can be checked on a bench or slab to keep them flat. Here are some Hurst part numbers.........
I've made a few out of bar stock (5/16 and 3/8) and then flatten the end to bolt to a shifter base. I like homemade round ones far better then flat Hurst or others in cars before the 50's. I have a few Model A and AA shifters to modify to fit the '28, since I don't have a way to taper bar stock.
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