Hi all, Im new to Ford Enthusiasts, although Ive been using this site as a guide for a few months now. I'm young, though Ill not state my age, restoring my first truck I got for my birthday/Christmas back in January, its a 66' F250. It has a C6 and it had some sort of magyver'd Mustang auto shifter into the floor. I've gotten rid of that in favor of converting it back to the column as an automatic. It was originally a 3 on the tree, however there are obviously source parts to convert it, and this is where I run into my problem.

I had ordered a replacement auto collar; D5TZ-7228-AF off of cgford parts, and ive been told by a number it should work (even though I likely should have gone with the original built into the collar indicator, but oh well) however my dilemma is that it will not slip over the column. I've been told that columns between manuals and automatics are nearly identical, save for the hole for the NSS, and if power steering comes into play (My truck is non P/S) which here it doesn't.

You can see the wear on the bottom of the collar from the attempts to slip it over, I've just about resorted to cutting into the column, as much as it irks me to do so, but before I submit to such heresy I thought I'd ask what is likely my best place to find an answer.

Thanks, and have a good one!

 

Unfortunately I think you are trying to put a square peg in a round hole. You might be better off sticking with the floor shifter until you can gather up all the parts to convert to a column shift. You are going to need several stars to line up for a column shifter to work. You really need a column from a truck that came with an auto trans with a provision for a neutral safety switch either on the column or the trans. Also the transmission needs a manual lever in it that is for a truck. Changing a manual lever in a C6 isn't a big deal but it does require removing the valve body.
Here are a couple of pictures. The first is a page from the 1973 chassis manual showing the shift control linkage for a column mounted neutral safety switch.
The second is just three of the many different manual levers that might be in your transmission. The one on the right is for a floor shifter, it will not work for a column shift. The one in the center is for a truck and would be the one used with the column mounted neutral safety switch the engineering number on it is D3TP-CA. These are the most common and easiest to find. The one on the far left is for a 78-79 truck with compound type linkage and a transmission mounted neutral safety. There is another manual lever that will work in a mix and match situation if you have to use a trans mounted neutral safety switch and the engineering number on it is E0TP-CA but it has to be bent up about 20 degrees to be roughly parallel with the bottom of the pan in order for the shift indicator to actually point to the gear you are in. It requires a D8TZ-7A247-A trans mounted NS switch.
Hope this isn't too long and complicated but if you don't get this right you may be able to drive the truck but no one else will.

 

The steering column tube on my automatic transmission equipped truck has an outside diameter of 2 1/4" and the collar down at the bottom edge has an inside diameter of 2 11/32" - I measured two different collars and they were the same as each other. So, that still leaves about a 3/16" gap all the way around. I also noticed you are missing the shift tube for the automatic, which is what the collar actually sits on top of. But, yes, it needs to fit over the outside of the column tube.