Finally! Been working on these for a while now. For my brother's '72 highboy we are doing a twin stick conversion on his swapped in NP205 and wanted shifters with an OEM influence. I used the basic design of the original and modified it to work with a second shifter handle. We wanted a chrome look so ended up going the polished stainless route.

*edit* got the photos working now - the site would not let me upload any photos with a caption.

We wanted the shifter to look kinda factory so we modified the original design to accommodate another shifter. We maintained the 5/8" shafts and 45° chamfers. The plate is 3/8" stainless versus the factory 5/16" carbon steel.


I reamed the factory bracket to 3/4", installed flanged bronze oilite bushings then reamed them to 5/8".


The laser cut plates had the holes reamed to size and countersunk, then were pressed to shape, then got the edges smoothed over. They have 90° bends on top and 75° bends in the middle and on the bottom.


The inner bracket gets a spacer welded on then both parts get reamed together to 3/4" for another flanged bushing. Now we are rid of the sloppy plastic bushings.


The concept works - now it's time to bend those beautiful shafts...



A lot of heat and a little pressure is all it takes. This was scary as the shafts were already machined, threaded and polished.


Joe Dirt was right- the ***** will buff out!



Time for some TIG action. Disclaimer - I do not weld and had a pro welder make it nice.


All welded spots were deeply countersunk first


Ready to assembly and install shift ***** and mount on the truck


Shift ***** installed


Finally mounted up to the truck with twin stick shift boot! Now I just need to machine some connector links to get back to the T-case.

 

Wow, none of my photos from my phone will load - crap.

 

It has taken about 2.5 hours to get these photos uploaded.

 

For reference, the shift ***** are from JKW Offroad and the shift boot is from JB Custom fabrication.

 

That is a work of art dude, I can get things made and they will work but they never look that good awesome job

 

That is some awesome craftsmanship. Other than looking super cool do dual sticks have an advantage over the original single stick?

 

What he said too bad they get covered up
Dave ----

 

Nice Work. I have a 205 I want to put in my 68 as well. Did you mod the shift rods or purchase them for the 205. Also any chance you know what your using for a speedo cable?

cstoyer

 

Those are friggin tough man...Awesome work

 

Twin sticks have a place in a big F250 and playing in the woods. You can select just the front axle to pull the truck around obsticles. Very cool mod. Awesome work man.

 

Thanks for the compliments! I've got many hours in front of the buffing wheel making these but it's something I enjoy doing.

It is a shame they get covered up, but with the slow pace of this project they will be exposed in a body-off stage for quite a while for viewing pleasure

We purchased the shift rails just to avoid the hassle and we didn't have a good handle on the exact dimensions to machine the originals properly. This conversion has been covered so many times that I don't plan on sharing any of the transfer case upgrade part of it (other than the parts I made to connect the rod ends to the shift rails).

Having front wheel only capability might come in handy on the ice, but I'm guessing rear low only or front low only will get used the most.

 

for a speedo cable I was thinking of a 73-77 highboy cable, but this truck will have a F-600 gauge cluster in it & that speedo had a gear reduction gizmo on it so I don't know what I will end up with.

 

Fantastic work!!! Wow.

 

Excellent fab work and a very useful mod for offroad use. I twin'd my 77 bronco and used 2wd Low and front axle only often. Can shift while rolling.

 

I think the fabrication of those shifters just got turned up to "11".



Very professional looking fab skills there.