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Yes that does help explain the issue! Thanks for the pictures! Which trans and tailhousing do you have to locate the shifter mechanism? Mine is a RUG e3
So the RUG-E3 is from a 69 mustang/cougar.
mine is a HEH-P from a 64 mustang. Mine is the short tail piece which for these trucks is what we want. I would measure mine but it is in the paint/body shop recovering from a not so good young driver.
The short tail piece puts the shifter right under the front of a stock bench seat. If the seat isn’t too tall that shifter might work. The long tail piece puts that sucker under the seat.
I know that the HEH trans sometimes has bosses drilled close to the main case for a shifter, but also one at the rear of the tail shaft near the slip. Which one is yours on? I assume the rear of the tail shaft?
So with the HEH-P I have a 24 in tailpiece. The shifter, which a hurst mechanism mounts about 6 inches fore of the rear of the tail piece. The pic is from the front flange of the trans to the bell housing. Sorry for the jumbo pics. Shifter location on tail piece. You can see the additional cutout to clear the shifter when going from the 303 to the top loader.
Last edited by SwampRattFord; Jun 19, 2022 at 07:30 AM.
Reason: Added more info.
Here is the additional cutout on the hump when going from the 303 to the top loader. You can see the shifter mount. So the shifter mount had to move back about 2 inches or so. This has the original hurst shift handle that had been chopped and re welded. Just to give some idea of the mods to the handle. Another pic of the hacked up shifter.
This is a 4331 shifter stick. Original shifter dims here https://core-shifters.com/products/h...-truck-4-speed
This gets me to the point of being to drive the truck and with the seat all the way back life is good. But rocking the seat forward there isn't enough clearance, I have the stock bench seat. In the earlier post I show the Hurst bench seat shifter I'm going to use once I can get it re-bent and the radius reduced to clear the seat. Then the wife can drive it as well. That is a priority to be. Happy wife, happy life.
The angle had to be modified to clear the stock bench seat. I put the shifter in and used some alum stock I had to approximate the angle required to clear the seat when all the way forward. Make a template to use when bending the shift handle.
This is 2nd gear and still touches the seat. When I bent the shifter I was about 1 inch short of the final angle on the cardboard template. I was hoping that was good enough but I see I need to take out a bit more angle but it is drive-able with the seat all the way forward. This Hurst bench shifter will do the job.
Here is the shifter with the seat all the way back, plenty of room for longer legged types.
Last edited by SwampRattFord; Sep 12, 2022 at 07:40 AM.
Reason: Added another photo.
It’s been a while since I checked in here, but I did get the shifter installed. I don’t have to modify the shift lever, but I did fabricate a new mounting bracket for the mechanism and made my own linkages.
I am currently at sea right now, on the way to Spain. We should get in tomorrow.
For those that are interested the engine we run on my ship is a Sulzer RT96-Flex. It’s a slow speed heavy fuel burning diesel, with a 96cm bore. Produces around 80,000 horsepower. One of our crankshaft bearings went out so in Spain we have the fun job of replacing it, within a 15 hour period. The engine is about 6 stories tall.
