So, where to begin. Its a long post but ill try to make it entertaining and you can laugh at my expense.I have an automatic C4 tranny 3 speed on the column. Like most, the shifter finally gave up the ghost and would no longer engage the shift sleeve inside the steering column. Options:
1. Buy the cheap plastic Chinese aftermarket sleeve for like $50 shipped.
2. Try to hit up a JY and tear apart steering column of a donor (these trucks are rare here in the mountains, pickings are slim to none)
3. Get a complete donor column from said JY that doesn't exist or drive all over the great wide state of North Carolina
4. Convert to floor shifter--ooohhh.. Always liked that cool look and now might be opportunity, how hard can it be? (remember that last bit!! lol)

So, i begin my story about 2 month ago, ill paint a picture.. Its Saturday afternoon and about 93 degrees. For us in the mountains that's about as hot as satan's ********* here in the mountains but hey, im tired of shifting the transmission by pushing in the e-brake, hoping out and pushing linkage under hood into the appropriate gear. I had been doing this for about a month now and it was getting real old. I also undid the neutral safety switch so i could stop the truck in "drive" put on e-brake and even start it in drive(with a minor lurch) Safe? No Smart?yea!! lol
I pull steering wheel and start digging into what i figured the issue was. Yup, shifter sleeve had all but disintegrated. Its like someone threw a tiny little grenade down the column and Poof, mostly dust left. how does that even happen? I remove said dust and couple pieces and im looking around all ends of the column and noticed there was another piece snapped near the end inside the column. Not sure what that is but its def part of the linkage under the hood and going down to tranny. Well ****e! As with everything with old trucks/cars in general, this just got a lot more interesting and complicated. Remember those 4 options above. Well, option 1. Gone. Went inside and drank a beer and mulled it over in my head.
I guess im doing option 2-4. I started calling around JY in my region and by region i mean within 10 hours of asheville. Pickings are slimmer than i thought for steering columns..Do i want to invest time to drive 7-10 hours to go part pulling in what could/could not be there.. me thinks not. So then i think, well, this is gods way of telling me, "that looking cool/what you wanted" option is what you should do. Option 2+3 off the table but wait theres more!
Option 5. But your saying toi yourself "john, there was no option 5 listed" This is because i didn't know it existed and this is where the pro tip comes in. My mechanic friend up the road said there's a guy in upstate new york, that does this exact thing. For $650 which includes shipping both ways, he will completely rebuild your steering column(all ford trucks from 56-85 with parts his machine shop produces, all metal no cheap plastic crap and it has a two year guarantee. I can get the info if anyone is interested? Seemed really pricey but piece of mind for new internals all the way through might be worth it.
So option 4 it is, off to look for a shifter on the interwebs
I call summit because racing stuffs...lol
They have multiple to choose from for the c4/c6. The bigger the brand name, the more cash.I opt for the B+M star shifter. Not the hurst but for lucille, plenty good and its kind of cool and blingy. Cost to my door $200. Summit tech says, its a direct bolt on/line up for the C4 (remember that!!). When speaking to summit(they do have great customer service for questions) I asked about the shifter and clearance issues. How much of the linkage sits below the tranny tub and would it hit the c4. Im no clearance expert. He stated, nope! B+M makes it easy for you, all linkage resides in the housing all you need to to do is drill a couple small holes and snake the linkage cable through-well get to that in a bit. Im done for the week
Wednesday, i get home, its waiting for me on front door. Should i start? nah, ill open box, check it out. Look at its shiny-ness and make vroom shifting noises while im playing with it and wait till the weekend.
Saturday rolls around, make a early doughnut run because..doughnuts, duh!
Get home and make some coffee and decide to make a day of it.
1st- the shifter install. I will say, it was one of the easiest things i have ever installed. It has a ring with 4 places to drill small holes and mount to inside cab that the whole assembly attaches too. The box actually even had the metal bit for drilling and it has a stop gap so you cant drill too far and do damage. Nice! When speaking to summit, he suggested right in the middle of the tranny hump inside th cab for clearance of shifter and alignment and then scootch it 1 1/2" to the left and it will be a perfect fit. The cable actually has +3" adjustment but this would be perfect so thats what i did. I then proceeded with the directions of drilling a 3/4" with the template that comes with it for the cable to slide through. Box also had this bit. Damn, really nice! The mounting ring comes with 4 self tapping metal screws. The center hole for the pass through comes with a nice rubber grommit so you dont mar up the shifter cable when its passed through. The whole shifter assembly then lines up in tabs on teh rings and auto clamps down, attach the cable, run grommit up cable and install in whole. Attach the black boot over the shifter. BAM done.
Now comes the interesting bit. The metal housing to hold the other end of the cable didnt line up with the mounting position it was supposed to be on the tranny and/or the screw holes. Wait, What? i dont see any holes and the cable is long. what did i do wrong? this isnt that complicated. I followed directions. i started mentally cursing the summit racing tech. Let me look at directions..ok, did that, did that. My mounting points on the tranny dont exist? WTF? I drink a beer and start thinking? whats going on? then a terrible thought enters my brain. Maybe i dont have a c4? Thats what PO had said and i hadnt had to mess with tranny since when i first got it and changed fluid and the extent of overview was, yup..thats a tranny and it looks like any other tranny..haha. I look at identification code and get online.. OH NOOO!! i dont have a c4 i have something called an fmx tranny that was only manufactured from 74-76 for the 302..ughh. Ok, drink a beer and take a breath. Ill just call summit ask for forgiveness due to ignorance and see if i can swap for one for a fmx. He puts me on hold for what must be 20 minutes and comes back and says "I got bad news, we dont have any direct fit shifters for that tranny and i have looked up all manufacturers and vendors, your going to have to come up with a plan b!" Plan B? Whats a plan B? lol
I go have another doughnut
I get back under trunk and look at the plate B+M supplies. I need to figure out a way to mount this plate minus a couple notches it has for fitment to the tranny and holes to mount screws. I take a million pictures of where the cable mount should be to attach the cable to linkage on tranny as well as the end piece that is the kick stop for the adjusting screw for each gear shift(well get to that in a bit). I think i may have an answer. The oil pan (wait, you ask, what are you talking about) I can use the screws for the oil pan on one side with some beefier bolts as the first anchor point. i can then sand some points on the tranny to have it welded to teh side(not a huge weld but rather spot welds). I call my mechanic buddy who'ss also a welder and machinist. He comes over, i explain what happened and 15 minutes later after he caught his breath and got off the ground from laughing, we got to business). Over the next week, every night after work, i drew up some designs in auto cad and bought a $1000 sheet of metal so his cnc machine could do the cutting. Needless to say, it took 7 iterations to pull this off and to be honest, it was much less trial and effort than i envisioned.
Next Saturday rolls around, we test fit, get the cable in, get the stop gap block welded in place and bam! DAMN, it looks pretty good. Down side is, when i drop oil pan, i will have to un-assemble two thirds of this rigging but being cool isnt easy. i have done it so many times, its actually just another 3-4 minutes anyways
Im right proud of myself with the help of my bud. We then get to the fun part. He says, now you need to adjust the screw for each of the gears. What? He laughed and said look at the directions and then left laughing.
I looked at the directions and it said for every gear, have someone shift the gear shifter and then adjust the screw to hit the stop block for the "in" of that gear and then for the "out" of that gear for every gear, rinse and repeat. Easy right? uhmmm..hell no. Its impossible to do by yourself. i was up under the truck and then back up in cab, a million times and i hadn't got out of "Park".. oh god. im old and i just cant do this.so freaking aggravating!! I had to rethink this whole debacle!! Im done for the day.
Next weekend rolls around and i con the boy next door plus $20 and a ride in my other new project(well get to that) and he agrees.
It took countless hours, i just couldn't get the hang of it and i wanted to make sure it was right. I got Park, reverse, drive and second done. I still need to do first but i have never used that gear so it wasnt important to me. Hoew many hours you may ask that i have vested in this easy afternoon project. I would say probably 30 hours of work..ughh but its done.
Here are some pictures. I havent added all the irrelevant screw up mock up pics..lol
has sticker with P,R,N,D,2,1 and a little red pointer that moves up and down when shifting gears. Has two finger ratchet pull for getting out of park and reverse, you can then lat go and it ratchets down with short throw pulls. If you had a turbo 350 or power glide tranny, this would def be useful but lucille aint no speed demon



You can tell its just a tad off centered to the left but not really noticeable and to be honest, could have really mounted this anywhere on tranny hump



height is middle of foam on seat when in drive. Its not real tall but still easy to reach



removal of down linkage from column to tranny.



Fab work we did, you can see custom mount we created attached to oil pan with beefier bolts and red loc-tite



close up of the adjusting nut in and out



Long adjusting rod as well as stop block welded in place.

 

What ever it takes right? Looking good on that mount plate mod. Just remember to use some lock washers (ck out Nord-Lock) under the trans mounted plate, and maybe a double nut or nut-lock washer-nut set up on the cable.

Nord-Lock wedge-locking washers | Secure your critical bolted joints with the original lock washer from the bolting experts Fastenall carries them.

I had to mod the heck out my set up when it broke on the Bronco, so I feel for ya.

 

Awesome tip. Thanks brother..I'm def ordering those in the morning. I have been driving her the last couple days around the neighborhood and doing a lot of "shifting" and everything is still tidy and where is supposed to be.

 

Yea those Nord-Lock are awesome! You will never use a standard cut/bent lock washer again.

If you do not want to take it apart to double nut/lock washer it, crack it loose a bit and put some Loctite or Permatex Red Thread Locker on the threads, re-tighten and done.

 

That's pretty cool-glad you were able to get it to work! Obviously, donuts are key to a project like this

 

"It's better to be dead and cool than alive and uncool".

-Mickey Rourke from Harley Davidson and The Marlboro Man.

I quote that retard every time I do something stupid-but-cool. Not that what you're doing is stupid, or that you're not cool... okay, enough already, you get it.

Swing it, brother.

 

Looks spiffy.

Getting ours to work with the E4OD was fun!