Hello everyone,

I have a 1969 F100 that originally came with a 360/C6. I've have just installed a early 90's 5.0 roller that's mated up to a C4 from a 66 Fairlane.
The original C6 had the trans shifter linkage oriented downward, which worked as designed with the factory steering column shifter linkage.
I stole a pix off of another C4 post to reflect the original C6 orientation, as well as a pix of a C4 to reflect my current linkage. The problem being
that the steering shaft linkage moves up/down as you shift(pretty obvious I know...), which again worked fine when the trans shifter linkage is on
the downside. However, with my current C4 trans linkage pointing upwards, you essentially have to move the linkage front to back to shift.

So here are my questions/possibilities:

Can you, or is it easy enough to flip the existing upward pointing C4 shifter linkage to a downward orientation?
Is there some pre-engineered trans shifter adapter to change the orientation?
Is there some pre-engineered steering shaft to trans linkage rod that might work, or cable driven solution?

I really don't want to have to tear into the trans pan/valve body(if at all possible) to flip the linkage, nor do I want to put a floor shifter in.
I could probably fabricate a piece of 1/8 steel to bolt up to the existing linkage, to essentially flip the rod mount point, but that's obviously
creating a new point of failure.

Any ideas out there?

 

I'm pretty sure you can flip it over. But you have to Drop the valve body and pull it out from inside.

 

Build a simple bell crank to reverse direction, add one more rod to trans.
Like this (78 C6 in 72 F250)


Trans has a threaded hole in the perfect spot. Took a bit of testing to find the right ratio to get gears detents to line up correctly.

 

Hey smoky_diesel, that was what I thought could be done, I just couldn't see it in my minds eye...

Thanks alot for your reply!!!

 

Your welcome.
The factory did similar on the later Cx trans with upward lever. bell crank bar went from frame to trans or motor.

Mine is bushed with bronze bushing and a bolt shimmed to bottom out on end so it can be properly torqued but not bind up linkage. There is more info in my build thread someplace.

I recently reworked it for the 6R80 trans

 

The difference between up and down linkage is column shift or floor shift.