Excited to hear about your progress. I find it always rewarding when little things start to fall into place. The best thing about this site, is that the chances are someone has been there and done that, so the learning curve is less steep. keep the photos's coming.

As for the truck growing on you...I think it would be more strange if it didn't! Especially as you make personal improvements and slight upgrades to suite you.

 

Matt, Folks,
Your comments are very helpful! On a project that is new its great to have support. I am hoping the shifter meets my expectations. Having never installed a floor shift its new for me, But as you mentioned there are so many folks on here that this is not a big deal at all. Will be learning as we go. I will get some pictures when I mock this up. Have to be careful as my seat is in the upholstery shop. May just mock up the location of the front of the seat, so I don't get the shifter too close.

 

I would wait for the seat...its quite a critical location.

 

Thanks Rusty. Probably the thing to do on the seat location vs new floor shift assembly. Realized I needed the upper bushing in the column so got that on order today too. A friend suggested that I should just remove the radiator cap, and drive a new truck under it! Ok this 66 needs some love. But I must say after watching some YouTube videos, this turquoise truck could be a lot worse too. So we move forward.
What do we do while waiting? Play with other toys and spend some money.


I ordered a chrome exhaust pipe and cap for the larger Allis-Chalmers WD45 to match the smaller CA which has that fancy smanshey exhaust. These must look good when we are pulling and no one is in the stands

 

Guys,
Hoping to get a location for the mounting of the Lokar floor shifter base today. It has some adjustment to it in the base for pivoting the stick forward and back. Suggestions always welcome. But I will take a run at it today. That is a long with 17 other things that need done around here like complete the prep for the finish mower, and get it ready to mow lawn!








Lokar kick down hardware was in place

 

Here are my thoughts:

1. Do the 17 other things and wait for your bench seat.

2. Consider shortening and bending the stick as needed. Looks a bit long to me if you were to place it as shown, and I’m thinking for an auto shifter in a truck you can compromise the position a bit to optimize access to the radio and clearance for a middle passenger

3. Consider driving with someone in the middle spot. My youngest is accustomed to a tap on the knee when I’m shifting into 4th or a bigger nudge when shifting into R Kinda endearing but also kinda annoying for him

4. Relative to where you have it placed in the photo, my manual floor shift is located more tucked under the dash and higher up the tunnel, where the tunnel cover turns a steeper angle ‘up’, and so the stick is naturally angled back more. And then the stick is bent different to clear all the stuff from that mount location.

 

Wyane, folks
You interior is VERY nice! Lot of work to get that looking sharp! Thanks for the suggestions. Seat was done today so picked it up and John came over to help me put it in place for testing various shifter positions. The upholstery shop steamed the foam in the seat base. Then added another inch of foam. It feels stiffer and more supportive. On the seat back he took about 1.5 inches out of the thickness. He removed the old worn out foam, added new foam and stretched the existing seat cover tighter! The extra leg room is a big plus in the cab.




John checking out the seat


New wheel in position for trial:

If I get a straight lever arm the shifter could be shifted to the left like this. But the 2.5 inch offset shift lever means it has to move right, closer to center of the rig.


Shifter not in position. John is checking out the smaller wheel and shifter location options.


I had not thought about somebody in the center of the seat. Probably won't bend or shorten this shift arm, but Lokar does have other bends and lengths available also.
So as we were prototyping the location and drilling some holes we found that the shift lever in the kit that goes through a slot in the floor hits the rear mounting brackets when trying to get into park. So that needs to be addressed. Also for it to work the shifter assembly has to be moved to the right. Or I have to get a Lokar shift lever that is just straight through the floor as mentioned above. I also forgot to move the seat forward to see the shifter location.

 

Guys,
So I got a couple hours on the shifter install. Got it positioned so I can reach the radio! So important! Cut out the slot for the shift arm. Have two bolts holding the shifter to the floor. Not very impressed with the stiffness of the floor! Attached the cable loosely and routed it towards the tranny bracket! Wallah! The cross frame for this transmission is right fully in the way of the direct line of the cable! Nice. Over top the crossmember makes the cable have to bend very sharp. Going under the cross member might work but the Lokar bracket coming off the tranny would need to be 1.5 inches lower! Yuck. Looks like the straight forward option would be to just drill a 3/4 inch dia hole through both vertical sides of the cross member in line with the new bracket! Seems about right for this rig.




Our cat Lucy has about the same disgusted look as me!


Keep falling forward. Thanks to John for coming over and helping. We will get it and it should be a good improvement and safer too.

 

Just curious if the position of the cross member would allow you to maybe add a spacer between the underside of the tunnel plate, and the top side of the cross member, to add stiffness to the shifter mount? If you think about it, the normal floor shifter would be the four speed, and it is mounted to the transmission itself, and there is only a hole in the tunnel.

 

Matt, Folks,
First I wanted to say that I was proud of your restraint in the pushrod thread. I had some words written there and did not post. Not worth the aggravation. I have been using forums to gain knowledge and chat with others for 20 years. Almost all of it was good!
On the stiffness of the shifter. I thought about it also and have some ideas to stiffen the shifter with maybe some straps running across the tunnel have to look at that a little more. Always easier to dream something up than make it happen! I will look at your suggestion as a option also.
for the cross member vs shift lever problem: I may just drill a 5/8 inch hole through the rear tranny cross member to let the shift cable run through in a direct line to the transmission. Providing support to the cable also.
My work on things time slot doesn't start till 11:30 am, so just catching up and posting an update. Hope things are good in Germany.

 

Chris,

Thanks, One of the many.....Maaaannnnyyyyy lessons I have learned while living in Germany, trying to adjust to cultural differences, language barriers, and in general, having a different perspective, is that there are a lot of different ways to go about doing the same thing. I think the phrase is...there is more than one way to skin a cat...fish.

Right after I moved here, I went to work with an old master carpenter making desks and chairs for a school. Herr Hild was over 70, and had a bad heart, so he would tell me what he wanted, scribble down some numbers or make a sketch, and go take a nap. I would start producing parts. Cutting, planing, shaping, and after a while he would come back, look at what I had done, and occasionally start to get upset that I didn't do it exactly as he had said. Mind you back then, I spoke almost no German, and he certainly didn't have more than a few words of English. But in every case, he would start...stop, realise the end result was what he wanted, and then pat me on the shoulder and say "Gut gemacht."

The point is, I am sure both parties only wanted what was best for the OP, but sometimes, it is important just to feel heard, and maybe that was part of the problem. I have no doubt that Chad's comments are based on experience, and a very, very, precise and well thought out and executed plan. As he wrote, he has the ability to follow that path, and God bless him for it. On the other side, in all likelihood, the other persons experience was equally successful with less steps, and he felt frustrated that at what he saw as clear, was not acknowledged or respected...I get that too, I deal with that frustration almost daily. Regardless, it's a good reminder to me, that I need to let folks do it the way they want, and not take it personally. Easier said than done....

In the meantime, I took a half day today, was feeling a bit knackered, as we had my son's confirmation yesterday and 20 guests. While my wife and her friend did 90% of the work over the previous weeks, it still takes a lot out of me, so it was good that today's schedule was light.

Wishing you, Cheryl and John all the best, and look forward to seeing how this current project proceeds.

 

Matt,
Listening to 60's music with Cheryl starting to pace through the house.
John has been hanging in helping me every day on the 66.
We bolted the Lokar shifter base to the floor. Not much room to get the nuts on the bolts in the middle of the tranny to floor area. Got them. Put in the other cable bracket attached to the floor.


Drilled two holes in the cross member to align the cable with the trans shift lever. That worked fine.






I need to make a steel support bracket to keep the cable between and away from the exhaust and the drive shaft. I can bolt it to the back of the transmission tail section. Have a simple design in mind. Using some good heavy wire for testing. Put the new steering wheel on and we took the 66 up the road for a test.
Truck drives good no sawing of the wheel! Straight down the road at 60mph seems responsive and shifts through all the gears ok. Engine seems to have enough ponies for this old man.
So I am having trouble getting the shifter or the tranny to go into second or low gear .It will shift into those gears sometimes and sometimes not? May. have to hold my mouth just right? I need to isolate the issue by removing the cable from the tranny arm then moving one or the other. Maybe in the trans maybe in the shifter?
This is going to be much safer than the previous column shifter! Note that the trans in the truck had neutral safety already wired into the top of the trans so we did not have to do any thinking on electrical issue. Not my strong suit anyway.


Amazing how fast 5 hours of playing in the sandbox goes by! Thanks for checking on an old man! Hope things are good in Ford truck land

 

With an AOD it needs to have the Throttle Valve pressure cable hooked up too or it will burn up the direct clutch in as little as 15-20 miles.

Lokar 48" HI-TECH STAINLESS STEEL HOUSING AOD KICKDOWN CABLE

The MX-COM, C6 and others use a vacuum modulator as the signal for transmission shifts, but the AOD doesn't use one - instead relying on the TV cable.

 

Chad, Folks,
Thanks for the input. I think these are the correct items for the kick down that were on the truck when I got it. I sent these pictures to Lokar and they approved.
I was not very clear the transmission seems to be working fine in drive. It goes through all the gears. The shifter does not want to go smoothly into the lower gears. So more to review in this area.

 

Guys,
I fiddled with the shifter yesterday morning and talked to Jeff at Lokar also. Made some small adjustments and the shifter seems to be working ok Or I am learning how it works, may be a better statement!
I did fab the bracket for holding the shift cable in-between the drive shaft and the exhaust pipe. One more modification/improvement to the bracket and that will be fine.
Next to start on the steering column correction. Will be adding the smooth cone to replace the three on the tree cone. I think about gaining knowledge on this shop truck project this late in life. Lots of guys did this stuff in their teens or when younger than I am. Thanks for all the support from folks like Chad and Matt and Rusty......!
So I do have the new collar for LMC. Will try to get some pictures as the steering column project takes shape too.