Bear with me friends,
I just bought my first old truck, a 1966 F100, original 352 (rebuilt and running strong), original 3 speed trans with shifter moved to floor by PO. PO said shifter arm was cheap generic autozone part and needed to be moved back and forth once or twice to get into second.
First drive yesterday and I had a real difficult time getting through the gears, pure luck when it did hook up. On the way home it got locked in 3rd, found the tabs at the base of the shifter weren't hooking into either of the slots in the linkage bars (forgive the terminology). Moved it by hand and got it back to square one. Buddy told me to first grease up the bars to make it easier for the shifter to slide in and out. Then look at tinkering with the lengths of the pushrods (again I apologize for the grossly mislabled parts) before looking into the transmission itself.
Now for the real point, does anyone have a basic series of troubleshooting steps for something like this? I'm prepared for the worst but would like to be sure before I start tearing in to stuff.
Thank you all for your helpful knowledge and patience. I'm just trying to keep this old baby on the road, she deserves it.

 

The first question I would ask is do you want to keep the floor shift?

The reason I ask is depending upon the quality of the shift kit bought, and the quality of the installation, you could be in for a long series of small fixes with major frustrations in between.

I rebuilt my column, and put all new bushings and bearings in it, and it shifts like a dream. Including paint I only put about $150.00 in it. (I know I previously said less, but I looked at the receipts, and that is what I spent on all of it.)

The bushings and bearings are all available, and there are really good diagrams to show you how the columns go together and come apart. The only possible issue I could think of is the shift rods, and I bet someone on here has a set you could buy.

If you choose to stick with a floor shift, I would look at the shifter, and the install really careful. It might be the fastest least frustrating route would be to buy a new quality shifter kit, and install it carefully and make sure it is done right.

 

I'm not partial to the floor shifter. Stock is cooler in my opinion. Local junkyard just got an old fleet of late 60's/early 70's trucks from some construction lot or someplace. Might be able to get a column and shifter together.

 

go with column shifter(3onthetree)it's cool

roy

 

I will be following this one, since I also sometimes have to wiggle a little to get into 2nd gear on my '63, which also has a three-speed converted to floor. This is a hurst shifter and it seems decent quality. It shifted better before I removed and replaced the trans for a clutch replacement, so I'm thinking it's just an adjustment. I am planning on checking this out as soon as I can and will let you know if I come up with anything that might be helpful.

 

After dinking around under the truck for a few minutes I noticed a few things.

A) It appears I have some kind of rinky-dink, bubble gum shifter.

B) It looks like the PO drove a bolt with a locking nut into each end of the shifter assembly to act as stops for the front-to-back travel of the shifter arm. I would assume they're supposed to be there, but they look like they were dug out of the mason jar out in the garage and rammed in by someone like myself, who has a penchant for forcing things into places where they shouldn't be.

C) When I move the shift arm into what should be second, it feels like I'm hitting a wall, no grinding or anything. I figured the synchro was shot to the point that it wasn't even trying to engage the gear, BUT two things are happening with the linkage when I hit that "wall", a) the shift arm is butting up against that "stopping bolt" as I call it and b) the push rod or whatever it's called is coming down on the bolt that holds one of the levers to the gearbox. If I bent that rod slightly, it would avoid that bolt on the lever and if I backed that stopping bolt in the assembly out it would give me a little more travel as well.

So, all you pros, is it customary to sorta bend those rods to get them going where they should without interference? Is it bad to have more travel than you need to push / pull those levers? Why put a stop on the shift arm? What is so bad about letting it stop itself when it engages the gears? Are you trying to stop it from engaging too much? I know it's a lot of questions, but a basic rundown on what's happening down there would help me immensely.

Last question I promise, should the levers on the gear box be all "jingly-jangly" as I like to say? They seem to have a lot of lateral play, I have no frame of reference as to what is normal there. I'm tempted to just crank the bolts down on those levers and tighten them up a bit, but I'm not sure about all the implications of doing so.

Actual last question, I lied, if the linkage were somehow failing to push the lever far enough to engage 2nd gear, would that prohibit 3rd gear from engaging as well? In other words, are these transmissions designed to -or can they reach a state where they must, due to wear or damage- be engaged progressively? Does going into 2nd, set me up for 3rd? Could one gear be the weak link for those behind it, or should I be able to shift from 1st to 3rd if I wanted?

You guys are awesome.

 

Well since you are partial to the stock 3 on the tree, I would check into finding a set of shift levers at a local yard. If you can't find any post here someone has to have a set from a parts truck. I have a complete column, I am only holding on to because I think someday someone will pay the shipping and I will send it off and they can have it. I bought another column and stripped it down, painted it, and rebuilt it.

On another note, with your shift issue. I had a buddy who had a similar issue on his 67 Ford. He couldn't get it to stay in second gear and then eventually he couldn't get it to go into second. We started looking and noticed the bolts for the fan were about 1/8 of an inch from the radiator. He had broken both motor mounts, and the engine had vibrated forward about 1 inch, and that made the shifter hit the tin on the trans hump. His back trans mount wasn't bolted and so it all just walked forward. Really funny. We used a jack an moved the engine back, and drove home. Oh to be young and that brave again!!!!!

 

Maybe I should clarify... I think column shifters are cool, look awesome and make it easier for my sweetheart to scoot on over, but being able get out of the driveway sometime this week is even cooler. So if I can fix what I've got, I will. The column move will come later, unless it has to come first. We'll see what happens.

 

"I have a complete column, I am only holding on to because I think someday someone will pay the shipping and I will send it off and they can have it."


How much would it cost to ship to old Virginny? I'll weigh out all my options here.

My column's got these two tab looking deals that rotate on the column. My guess is something broke inside the column and the guy just ditched it altogether. I have to assume each of these had one end of a push rod secured by a cotter pin or something. Do the pushrods go straight to the lever I'm currently connected to, or is there another step along the way? I'm thinking there must be another step because the column and the floor shifter come at the gear box from totally different angles.

 

The way the shift works is there is a shift tube that has a tab on it. You pull up on the shifter and it engages one of the tabs you are speaking of, and you let the shifter drop and you engage the other tab. If you can move the column shift collar and the tabs move the tube is likely in decent shape. The tube in the one I bought was broken bad, and it still worked. I bought a new shift tube from Dennis Carpenter. On the upper end on the tube the shift lever just slips into a hole so you can push up and let down on the tube. If you could find a truck in a yard all you would need to test the column you have is the shift lever, and the rods. Even if you didn't have the grommets for the tabs on the column or the special E type, (Not E clips) that attach it to the transmission you would be able to test if it works. If it failed you would have maybe $30 in parts you will need if you ever do switch it back to the column. If it works then order all the clips and grommets, and you are switched back. Remove the floor shifter, and patch the hole or just cover it for now.

 

The three usual reasons why peeps install a floor shifter:

1) At the bottom of the steering column underneath the hood are the two manual control selector levers that the shift rods from the trans attach to. In each one of these levers is a rubber bushing and insulator.

The bushings age crack and/or fall apart, causing the shift lever to bind up.

2) The pot metal shift collar that the lever fits into has a bridge made as part of it that connects it to the shift tube. The bridge snaps, the shift lever flops around.

3) The shift tube has a sweated on rectangular piece that the collar locks onto. The piece falls off the shift tube.

Peeps are unaware of where to buy replacement parts, so they install a floor shifter instead.

 

Thanks for the info NumberDummy, I can see how any of those would motivate someone to switch, but I also know all the parts are available, because I replaced all that stuff when I rebuilt my column. So while it seems like a good reason, unless a shift kit is less than $100.00 it is just as easy to replace the stock parts, and repair the issue.

 

YES!!!,

Totally fixed it! I got under there and took a look at it again yesterday. The two levers or bars on the gear box just had too much play. I backed the nuts off of the two bolts (one for R - 1st, the other 2nd - 3rd) and slid those lever plates off. The plates, as part of the rinky-dink shift kit ($60 at advance auto by the way, looked it up) have several different slots and holes to offer you various configurations. The PO had set those flattened bolts into slots on the plate that were too long and left too much play. The bolts had chewed into those slots and widened them out, so they no longer turned the bolts effectively, thus failing to shift the gears. I flipped the plates around and put them back on the bolts using one of the unused slots that actually fit and voila!! CLICK-CLICK-CLICK, each bolt clicked smoothly and crisply into and out of its three positions. Turning the plates around did rearrange the location of the push rod holes, so I had the spin the little tab things up or down the threaded end of the rod til both of the shift levers on the shifter end matched up at neutral. I also bent the rods around a little bit so they weren't rubbing the frame, tach cable, and a couple other things. Mostly I just bent them by hand, a couple times I put one in a table vise to get a tighter bend. Got the rods back in and took her for a spin. SMOOTH AS SILK! Runs through all gears flawlessly, no noise, no hang ups, just perfect. I was hootin' and hollerin' when she slid into second and third!!! You guys know that feeling right! I would like to go back to 3 on the tree in the future, but for now, this fix cost me exactly $0.00 and she's running, so I am happy as can be. Thanks for everything guys.

Next I need to tackle the motor getting vapor locked. I'm sure there's plenty on here, I'll dig around. Old timer in the grocery store parking lot last night told me to try putting wooden paper clips on the fuel line, supposed to help dissipate the heat. He swore by it.

 

I have heard of the Wooden Clothesline clips on the line. I guess it dissipates the heat. The other solution I have heard of is putting a electric fuel pump on, because then the fuel stays pressurized and cannot vaporize before it gets to the carb. Fortunately, I have not had any issues with that stuff on my current truck. You may want to post a new thread asking about that so that guys not subscribed to this thread will see the new subject.

 

Wooden clothes pins on the fuel line was an "old fix" to cure vapor lock. Wrapping the tube with aluminum foil was another fixum. Neither really works.

Rerouting the fuel line away from the exhaust manifold is the only fixum besides installing an electric fuel pump, that since it's a 'pusher' has to be mounted as close to the fuel tank as possible.