Working on a friends 1955 Chevy with a BBC and TH400 that has a Lokar floor shifter mounted to the trans. The issue WAS that the car would start in Drive. After setting up the nuetral safety switch per Lokar's instructions, the problem continued. Upon further investigation I found that when the trans was in drive, the shifter was not all the way to drive position. It was still too close to nuetral so still putting pressure on the switch ball. Now this car has the firewall and the tunnel modified to set the engine and trans back from normal position to give clearance for the engine and trans. But, it still has a bench seat, so the shifter mount is in the forward most position, can not go any farther forward. A call to Lokar Tech Supportresulted in some photos being sent and a tech telling us that when the shifter is mounted in the forward most position on the saddle mount for the TH400, the alignment between the shifter lever and the Lokar trans lever can be incorrect to the point to cause our problem. (When the shift rod is adjusted in park to slide easily onto both lever arms, this results in a nearly 3/8" miss-alignment when in gear position #1. ) Their suggestion was to move the shifter mount back on the saddle by 2", but we can not do that because then the shifter would hit the bench seat. Has anyone had a similar problem? Any advice on how to resolve this issue? Bend the shift rod? Raise the hole in the trans lever so it swings a longer arc.? Use the Lokar adjustable trans lever arm to rotate the "Park" position from 1 o"clock to straight up or 11 o"clock? Looking for experienced help! Thanks, Walt
going through similar problem on a '63 Nova SS and a B&M shifter - but, has bucket seats & factory floor console which is the problem limiting rearward adjustment - have ground on console as much as possible but, still limited - previous owner did install, and did not know much about wiring
I believe the detent block in the center of the shifter can be moved as well. Doesn’t the neutral switch screw into or contact that block? Mine is a 350 but should be the same I think. Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
has the same issue with one in a 39 woodie--took some mods and lots of time to get it to function properly. Not fond of them.
I'd loose the Lokar switch and rig up something off one of the levers. Either the shifter lever, the trans lever or even the shift rod. Maybe use something like a universal brake switch for an ATV or motorcycle. I used one for the kickdown on a T400. Something like this one:
OK, understand, not high quality or very study (1/4" hardware including the shift rod1) What is an acceptable alternative?
Lokar has a kit that is supposed to fix the problem. I ordered it, but it didn't quite work. The problem I remember is that the linkage is at an angle when you put the shifter in the forward position. I made an extension to move the linkage from the shifter lever to more in the same plane as the transmission lever. Seems like I used a long 1/4 in bolt and a piece of steel tubing to move the linkage out. I didn't get it perfect, but it is much closer and NSS does work. The only problem I have is you have to push the shifter a bit to get it all the way into Park. I haven't looked at this in a while and it looks like I did the same thing at the transmission.
A friend of a friend suggested we use this kit from Lokar as it worked for him. It is designed for Lokar column shifters. It has an adjustable lever for the trans that gives you both length and index adjustments. He told us to set the lever on the trans to about 12:30 o'clock in Park instead of the normal 1 o'clock position. Then he said to adjust the rod so that is about 1/8" away from the top of the rod adjustment slot and adjust the rod length until fits easily with the trans and the shifter both in Drive. We did as he instructed and it worked pretty good, shifted into all the gears and the NSS worked as it should to prevent starting in Drive and Reverse. You need to buy a 1/4-20 to 5/16-24 stud to put into the hole on the shifter lever as that hole is only 1/4". All the fittings in this kit are 5/16" instead of the 1/4" fittings supplied with the Lokar floor shifter kit. We are going to finish it up on Monday and I will get some photos of the final install. Thanks, Walt
This approach actually worked. We used the aluminum shift lever from the Lokar column shift kit shown above. we adjusted the mounting angle in "Park" position to be just sy of the 1PM position of the orginal Lokar lever. We installed a 1/4-20 bolt through a 1/2" nut and then secured it with a nut, making a stud for the Heim joint to mount to. We then adjusted that stud to be about 3/16" from the maximun upper position, making this pivot about 1/4" higher than the hole in the original Lokar lever. With this arrangement, we set the rod length in nuetral, and then checked that the shifter correctly indexed each gear postion. A quick road test showed that all gears worked well and that the car would now not start in "Drive" or "Reverse".
Nice! You should contact Lokar and explain this to them, so they can help out others with this issue.
Good to see the problem sorted out with a workable solution. Would another alternative be to use the Lokar shifter designed with the curved shaft for a bench seat?
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