I spent about 10 hours over the past couple days making a shifter for the '36 "Fordillac" out of the orignal brake pedal. Went out this morning to tidy up the linkage, got that all done and the thing adjusted so it works nice, and made a neat little detent release out of some brass rod, a small roll pin and spring from the hardware store. Then, I noticed a slight flaw in my design. The arm for the shifter swings right directly in front of the speedometer fitting on the trans . I guess I totally didn't notice that when setting the whole thing up. It passes about a inch from the side of the trans case, and there's no room to move it away. The trans is very tight to the floor tunnel, which is framed with 1 x 1/2 rect. tube, that can't be altered without totally cutting up the floor structure. I hate to abandon the shifter after I spent so much time on it, but it just won't work. I guess I'm now back to using the old outboard control I originally planned on, with a cable. Or something. The best thing I can do now is walk away from it and figure out plan B. Or C...
post some pics this place is chock full of people who can figure out stuff like this you might just need a fresh set of eyes on the project
Don't think I didn't consider that !! It would save the trouble of finding a working '36 Speedo, adapting it to the Turbo 400, and calibrating it! Tom Tom, how fast am I going now?
10 hours? I waste that amount of time pretty much every day. I am wasting some right now. Forget about it and just fix it.
I drove my daily for 25 years without a speedometer. If cars were passing me I was going too slow, if I was going too fast the police would let me know. I finally fixed the speedometer when I gave the car to my son, he totaled it 6 weeks later. Maybe I jinxed the car by fixing the speedometer, maybe it just me giving a fairly nice car to a 16 year old.
All that Hot Rodding fun ! Isn't there a speedometer that has a pic up that works on the rear end by the yoke ??
Your friendly truck shop can fix you up with a 90 dg adapter that will screw in there. Might have to bend the arm a bit.
Last bare-bones car I built, I just had a tach and the necessary monitoring gauges. Had buddy in a fairly new car (all stock) pace me on the freeway and I marked the tach face for whatever speed he said (cell phone) I was going. Then we went out on a country road and did same thing in 2nd gear - different colored graph tape. Had my buddy the striper do up some small arrows and code numbers and I was good to go. "don't let common sense stand in your way, Leroy...take your best shot" dj
OK, so here are some photos of the offending (offended?) shifter. After thinking about this all day, and just now going out and taking the photos, I have a couple of ideas. (We have company, I'm dressed up, or I'd have gotten on the creeper and taken photos of the underside to show the interference!) #1. I could cut the arm off the lever, and rotate it toward the rear enough so that the arm won't pass in front of the speedo drive. Note that due to limited clearance between the trans tunnel and trans case, the shifter arm points down, so the shifter is rearward in "Park", and moves forward, like an aircraft controller, to engage. #2. I could cut a corner off the trans tunnel, and make room for the lever on the trans to point up. This would make the shifter throw in the normal way, forward for "Park", and toward the driver, me, to engage. #3. Forget about it and put the "Tom Tom" on the dash when using the car. By far the easiest and most accurate . I really like the shifter, the homemade aspect of it. It bolts to the tailshaft mount on the trans, super simple, and it works. I have an old typewriter I've taken the 'Shift', and P R N D 1 2 keys off for the shifter ball, an "8" ball, and indicator. I'm dumfounded how I got it all finished before I realized it interfered with the speedo drive.
Is it possible to modify the shifter to connect with a cable instead of an arm? It's hard to see in the pictures where the interference is.
The interfering speedo drive is below the floor, so it doesn't show. The arm of the shifter swings right in front of it, about an inch away. I can't move the arm outboard any further, as it's 1/16" away from the floor subframe now, and clears the trans body by less than 1/4". Using a cable won't change anything as it is now, as the solid linkage works fine, it's the shift arm itself that is the culprit. I may be able to shorten both the shifter arm, and the trans lever (to maintain the ratio) and clear it, as both are rather long as it is now. Some time away from it may provide the proper insight/inspiration. I'll take some photos tommorow of the underside to show what's really what, and why I built it the way I did. Modifying the trans tunnel at the front of the trans whre the shifter arm is so the arm can point up, rather than hang down, may be the best way. I kind of like the idea of the shifter working "backwards", the way it is now, and I'm the only one who'll be driving it, but switching it may be only way out. I'm not ready to slit my wrists over this, it's just annoying. I totally ignored the speedo drive thing untill it was all dialed in.
Get a tach and mark it at the speeds you will most likely be traveling legally. I dont have a speedo. Just a tach
90* adapters seem to be in the 1 1/2" to 2" range. However, if you are that tight for space, you can always modify the tailshaft. I have seen a couple of guys cut the speedo drive boss out of a TH400 tail and tig it into a 4L80E tail. Just a thought. Should be easier with a TH400 - cit it vertically between the speedo drive boss and tranny mount boss, and rotate 180.
Back when my great-grandfather was a Southern Railway engineer running passenger service between Atlanta and Birmingham, they didn't have speedometers on the locomotives. The engineer had to be able to calculate his speed by timing the mileposts. So get yourself a big ol' open-face Hamilton pocket watch and learn to time the mile markers on the Interstate. 60 seconds between mile markers=60 MPH, 45 seconds apart =90 MPH.
Ha! Fixed it! As usual, a little time away led to a simple fix. As the photos show, the shift lever arm was longer than it needed to be. I pulled it out, drilled a series of new holes, and simply moved the rod up the arm untill it, the arm, can be whacked off so as not to move in front of the speedo drive. I did have to slightly reshape the trans arm, but that's no big deal. I quickly decided against cutting up the floor at this point to move the trans lever up, which would have reveresed the shifters throw, so it's still moved forward to engage, rather than the conventional rearward pull to engage. The lever doesn't hang down below the chassis with the trans in "D", so I'm not worried about something whacking it shifting the trans out of gear, or into reverse or park . I made a shift detent plate of a scrap of stainless left over from the gas tank strap, and dulled several drill bits in the process . Right now, the indicator letters are drawn on with a Sharpie, but I have an old typewriter from the 30's that's going to give up it's "Shift", "P", "N", "R", "D" and 1, 2, and 3 keys for that. I drilled and tapped a "Titleist" golf ball as a mock up, but have a cue ball that'll be real knob. Now when I dissasemble it, all I have to do is chop off the extra length on the shift arm, and deburr and detail the lever and brackets. I'm thinking of polishing and "blueing" the shifter, which would be different, and look good in the stark cockpit. Whaddya think?
Yeah, but I don't need one now! I actually used one of those on my motorized psuedo "Whizzer" bike (powered by a Chinese 2 cycle bike engine) and it works pretty well. The magnet mounts on a spoke, the sensor is on the front fork, and you can adjust it by sliding the magnet up or down. (It goes from "scary" to "THIS IS WAY TOO FAST FOR AN OLD BIKE TO GO".) Brian
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