Wrecked the Diamond T IN the garage.

That's sad. My truck got wrecked at a muffler shop and is now in in paint jail,4 mos. and counting. After it got to the body shop it almost got wrecked again, the same way yours happened.The guy there started it in drive . I too have a 4l60 with a lokar shifter and when I put it together I adjusted it according to instructions and checked it, but not in drive apparently. I took the boot off and checked it out again and found by shining a light on it that the n saftey switch couldn't be adj. to work in drive. It works as it's intended in the other positions. Yes, I verified the position of the shifter arm is at 4:20 or 4:30 or whatever (tech line guy) So the truck is still in paint jail so I haven't gotton this solved yet , but I'm thinking from what I saw, I can grind some out of the shifter and the n the switch will work.

 

Toss out the entire Lokar shifter. You'll never like it now and it'll always remind you of what it did.
Ed

 

Sad to hear Brian but it is the potential of what could have happened that really scares me. Hard to say it but you are lucky. Now get to work.

Pete


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Damn brian that sucks...glad you weren't hurt !!

 

Yup, I remember seeing the pics that you posted and shuddering. I hope to get mine fixed ASAP, although the time going to be tight. I had a months worth of other stuff yet to do as well.

Hope your truck gets fixed too, the damage looks about the same. It reminds me of when I took the '51 to "Muffler Man" for it's exhaust, also a fresh build. Unkown to me, or the tech who drove it on the hoist, the right front caliper had hung up on the way in, and boiled the fluid out. When he jumped it the car to pull it in, it had NO BRAKES, it took 4 of us sprinting to the car to keep it out of his toolbox. No damage, but it was scary. By the time the came down off the hoist with it's new exhaust system, the caliper had cooled down, the brakes were back, and I drove it straight to my buddies shop and had 'em fix it!

Brian

 

Ouch, damn nice truck. I almost had the same thing happen with the Lokar column conversion rod. I put it on a 700R4. We were getting it ready to load for the interior shop after 6yrs in the shop and for some strange reason I decided to back it out of the garage. I luckly got a milk crate to sit on and not realizing it the car was in reverse....it started. Somehow the adjustment piece on the trans, well got unadjusted. We were able to get it right and buttom up the interior trans cover. It took more trial and error. We found it was important to check it in each gear...thats wasn't in the instructions.

 

Not too long after I stqrted working where I do, my boss asked me to start a car he was working on while he was standing if front of it doing something. I reached in the window and turned the key and it started, in gear and smashed him betewwn it and the tool box. Thankfully he was ok. The car was a standard trans. car and I guess the clutch safety switch had been by-passed. I almost never start a car without getting in it now unless I know for 100% sure it is in prrk, neutral and won't crank otherwise. Even then, it is a good safety nazi practice to always start it behind the wheel with a foot on the brake.

 

Man that sucks Brian but at least you didn't get injured in the ordeal or even worse. Unfortunately sometimes it takes something like this to get us back on toes about safety at all time when working on our projects.

 

My main point is, don't take stuff for granted, no matte how pretty it is. I'm not entirely blaming the shifter, but I think it could have a better switch.

 

It sucks to read this! It's an awesome truck and I hope you get it done in the time frame you want it done in.


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sorry about your bad luck, reminds me of a buddy of mine workin on his shovelhead about twenty years ago bike was in garage on a carpet he was revin it standin beside it bike dropped in gear at about 3 grand pulled the carpet from under his feet he landed on his back and bike crashed into washing machine, everybody makes mistakes thats why they still put erasers on pencils, it just sucks all the extra work ya gotta due

 

That's too bad.

Funny, last night my buddy and I were installing a Lokar on the Willys pickup he's building for his daughter and he said "oh yeah, your 36 doesn't have the nuetral safety switch hooked up, you need to do that" (I had gotten the car from him) This makes me think maybe I should do that ASAP.

 

Very sorry to hear about this but you were not hurt (or worse) - I have been in your shoes and it isn't a good feeling until you start thinking of the alternatives. We all feel your pain and in doing so, hopefully shoulder some of that pain and give you the drive to get back to it to finish it ....

 

Sorry you experienced such a mishap, I share your sick feeling. I had a similar mishap with my comet recently, and I was so upset I was physically ill. It sucks, it is inconvienent, but at the end of the day stuff can be replaced and you are still here and ok.

 

as a kid i watched as my dad was doing some starter work on the old ramp truck when that thing fired up, full throttle. blasted through the overhead door like it was a curtain blowing in the breeze. my dad hanging off the side the whole time. i thought he was dead. luckily he got thrown into a pile of tires just outside the door, before the thing blasted across the yard into a telephone pole. the ol ramp was known a Christine for the remainder of the time he had it.

 

I guess we all have a story of near misses or worse.My youngest son was racing an S10 with a 454 engine.When at my shops garage door he tapped the accelerator to go in and it went wide open,flew 30 feet and through the concrete block rear wall before he could hit the kill switch. No one hurt but we were thankful no on was in front of it. I had tire tracks across the floor for years afterward.

 

Had problems with these myself. It's a detent-type system and a change in depth of the plunger changes when the contacts open or close.

When the plunger is extended it doesn't pass current. Conversely when it's depressed it does.

I have had to shim them out before to work correctly..

 

To bad about the truck, but good that you're ok. I had something similar happen 2 yrs ago with my dually. I HAD an underhood starter button I'd installed the day before and forgot that it bypassed the nuetrel safety switch, trucks a stick. I reached in turned the key on and forgot to check if it was out of gear, walked around the front hit the button and it immediatly started. I ended up with my pelvis broke in 4 places, spent 3 weeks in the hospital and 2-3 months recovery at home and in rehab. It's a hard way to learn but it's a lesson you don't forget

 

Had a problem with the brakes on a TCI chassis under a Downs 32 Vicky I once had. What a POS. Thank God I sold it. No matter how I adjusted the proportioning valve I couldn't get the brakes to equalize. While driving into my friends body shop and braking, the front wheels locked up, slid on bondo dust, while the rear wheels kept turning and a hole was punched in the right front fender. Fortunately it was an easy fix.

 

At least you weren't hurt, i had a couple of friends that were not as lucky. One lost his son who was leaning into the engine compartment and the other had his car go over his lawn mower and through the back wall causing a lot of damage to the car.

You just have to grit your teeth and get out there in the morning and get to it. It's amazing how much you can do in a day if need be.

 

Not to beat a dead horse here, but I just got home from my buddies shop, who is an NSRA safety inspector for SW lower MI (lets not debate the relevance of NSRA). According to him, the NSRA safety team advises EVERY car owner with a Lokar or Gennie shifter, to bypass the switch with a Ron Francis or GM switch ON THE TRANSMISSION at the shift arm. He says they have a great number of these shifters FAIL at inspection, much to the surprise of the car owners. He's running a Lokar in his cabriolet, with a Ron Francis switch on the trans. He further told me that NSRA has made Lokar aware of the problem, and lobbied to have them make changes with no success. Why should they change, evidently nobody has been killed yet.

I don't feel any better, but at least I know I'm not alone.

Brian

 

dude that fuckin' blows, and especially when your going down the check list to completion, but as everyone said, no one got hurt, so, time to roll up the sleeves and get at it, we got faith you'll get it done in time for your show.

 

My Gennie Shifter works fine when going from Park to R, N, D, 2 & 1. It only starts in Park and Nuetral. When going the other way, 1,2,D,N, R, Park, it will start in gear. This was pointed out to me by my brother an NSRA inspector last year. I called Gennie and they told me how to fix. I did and it was OK. That was a year ago I should check again.

 

You really should 48bill, unless you want the front end to look like mine. Wouldn't you feel better if THEY had contacted YOU, knowing there was a problem? I'm going the RF switch route and shit-canning the Lokar switch. I don't trust it, and never will.

Brian

 

I certainly understand your feelings toward the Lokar switch. But I've had a couple different Lokars, ones been on the cpe 9 years and around 65,000 mi, and not a lick of trouble with them. It has past safety 23 every year

 

Thanks for the heads up & that you were not hurt. I also have a lokar shifter w their safety switch on my 4L60 in the roadster. It started in D one day & I just thought it was out of adjustment. I have tried to get to do that again but so far it is ok. As others have stated may have been in shifting back & forth before I tried to start it. I always try to keep the car in P & seldom try to start it from outside the car. I surely will change this out soon.

 

About all I can say at present after reading this is BUGGER.

A good idea out from a bad thing. I like that brake (start only in park) switch idea. The best thing is you are ok and you can fix it.

 

I don't like the start only in park idea....
The NSS on my Lokar works fine (so far ...) and once when exiting a parking lot I punched it into traffic and bogged it into fail...
hit key to restart ... didn't (in drive)
banged it into neutral and restarted....
Would've been a bit fucked if I had to restart in park, in traffic !!

Not saying the Lokar NSS is failsafe but would rather be able to start in park OR neutral....
Will check its operation occasionally.
Just as I grease my front wheel bearings occasionally, and change my oil occasionally, and check the lock nuts on my four-bars occasionally....

 

So sorry to hear this Bryan. After you celebrated getting her back on the road, to have this happen. Keep your chin up though. Its all fixable, and thank goodness you weren't drug under it.

Don

 

Thinking outside of the box.............twin the brake light switch and run the starter wire through the second switch.............vehicle will only start when you are pushing the brakes............. sorry for your accident, but it appears you have a great talent and will make it better than it was. good luck with the dead line.......