I'm looking to install a LOKAR 23" Nostalgia shifter on my TH350 and was wondering, it seems that since Lokar has a reverse lockout and the shifter ball has a button, that you can't adapt some sort of a crazy shifter knob because of that. It would appear that in order to use another knob other than the stock one, you would have to choose from their very limited assortment. Any ideas or suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thanks, Mike
Correct. Do yourself a favor and get a Gennie Shifter. Then you can run any knob you want. They have a wide assortment of sizes and shapes. I don't have mine completely dialed in, and it still works great. Z
Lokar just came out with an adapter so you can run any knob you want. I'm guessing they finally felt the pressure from Gennie's advertising.
What is really bad about these shifters is the 1 to 2 and 2 to 3 shift when your hauling ice. There is no indent, you just have to be real easy and don't bump it too hard or move it too far. Not always easy to do when your sideways. I think they'd be cooler if you could bang from gear to gear.
I'll have to second that as well, but on the other hand these are not built for bracket racing. A real nice, well built piece for a street rod or hot rod. I do like the manual shuttle between 3-4 on the 700.
I used the 16" nostalgia shifter. I got myself an 8-Ball from JC Whitney, and just threaded it right on over the button, depressing it. So theoretically nothing really locks it in gear, since that little button is always pressed down. Ive had it like that for a year and its been fine-havent slammed reverse by accident or anything like that. I could'nt stand that plastic mushroom knob it comes with stock. -Dean
IF you haven't bought the shifter yet I would also recomend the Gennie Shifter as well. Not Just because my son works for them, and they have one of the best products in the after market, and you have an unlimited choice of shift knobs avalible to use, and they do have a lock out built into the shift pattern(it's a gate type, like the oem has used on coulmn shifters for ever) and they have great service and top notch tech support....... Well yeah, get one because of all those things
This may have nothing to do with the way Lokar has it's lock-out button, BUT>>>>>> I recently put a regular GM floor shifter assembly on a car that didn't have one. The owner wanted an extra long shifter handle, with a "dice" shift knob. The GM shifters have a button for a lockout (similar to Lokar?). I used hollow tubing for the shift handle. I bought a piece of teflon tubing, or rod (can't remember which) from McMaster Carr, and ran it down the length of the shifter tube. I drilled out the dice, and made my own button in it, with a return spring, and all, and it worked out perfectly. It just took a little while to work out the length of the teflon to work correctly. I am sure you can do the same with whatever knob you want to run, you'll just have to live with some sort of button up top to activate the lock-out. On the dice, it fit in with the design of it so it wasn't very noticable. If you think about it, you can come up with how to build a button, just the way I did. It ain't rocket science! If not, I can draw you a diagram.
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