As I near the final stages of my "new owner maintenance" as I call it, im moving out of necessary maintenance into preferred maintenance. one thing thats always bugged my about the 66 is the shifter. the shifter has a lot of play in it. when its in gear, you can still move the lever back and forth quite a bit. i might not explain this all just right, but its not at the trans. the linkages are not moving, just the shifter shaft itself. ive looked into rebuild kits, but I cant see anything in there that leads me to believe it would solve the problem. ive been tempted to buy a whole new shifter assembly, but that seems excessive. the 65 doesnt have this problem, so i know its not just an old car thing, so what can be done?

 

bump

 

I had the same opinion of my 66 L-79 4 speed shifter when I got it about a year ago. I rebuilt it and put the adjustment to short shift mode. It jammed up on the road a couple times so I replaced the shifter with a new one from LI Corvette. I installed this new one in the short shift mode too. It was a little stiff at first, but now, after about 1500 miles and a recent readjustment using the adjustment/alignment tool, I am satisfied. I find it to be tight and smooth, with reasonably short shifts.

Have you tried adjusting it to the short shift mode?

 

it was already in short shift when i got it, and i have since readjusted the rods keeping it in short shift. after at least 2 times adjusting and readjusting, it still has the tendancy to hang in reverse, and not pop back out into the rest of the H pattern. I would imagine thats a seperate problem from the loose feel, but maybe not? i dont mind spending the money to get the new shifter, but if theres just some worn out bushing that im missing it would be a shame to drop 300 bucks.

 

As far as I know there are no bushings in these shifter, so when they wear, they wear.

 

There are several common wear problems in mid-year shifters that you can correct. I haven't encountered one yet that couldn't be repaired to shift reliably and without rattles.

The loose feel is often caused by a sloppy fit at the base of the main shaft. You can see this problem with the boot off. The fix is to have the mainshaft welded to its base and then rechromed. Do not re-chrome the shaft where the reverse t-handle slides. If you do, the extra thickness of the new plating will cause the t-handle to jam. I know.

If the shifter isn't pulling the transmission out of gear consistently or the neutral gate adjustment needs frequent maintenance, the problem is often caused by the linkage lever arms mounted on the side of the transmission. The rectangular holes in these levers are supposed to fit tightly over the studs sticking out of the transmission. However, the lever holes wear over time and get larger. This allows the lever to move around and change the neutral gate adjustment. The fix is to buy and install new reproduction levers from Long Island Corvette Supply.

Sometimes a rattling noise is caused by wear within the shifter base mechanism. The various sliding plates get thinner after a few thousand shifts. The fix here is a thicker spacer plate to take up the slop. Again, it's available from Long Island. You might have to sand it some to get it to custom fit your shifter. Apply old-style heavy wheel bearing grease with fibers when you reassemble the mechanism. DO NOT USE WHITE LITHIUM GREASE IN A SHIFTER. It will get very hard over time and gum up the mechanism.

Careful inspection and repair takes time. You're going to kill a good 8 to 10 hours rebuilding an original shifter, but you'll be surprised at how well it will work afterward.


[Modified by jerrybramlett, 7:41 PM 4/30/2004]

 

:iagree:

 

very interesting. thanks for the info. think thats whats wrong. i have the boot off and thats what it looks like. is the shaft supposed to be welded to the base, or is that a work around fix?

 

i just got word im gonna get some help. the plan is in two weeks to bring the car up on the kwiklift, drop the trans for a clutch replacement, take the trans on the bench and really study this shifter. we'll replace what we need to, maybe the entire unit, but hopefully with the trans out of the car i can really see what i need to see in order to finally fix my plague of shifter and linkage problems ive had since day 1

 

[QUOTE]There are several common wear problems in mid-year shifters that you can correct. I haven't encountered one yet that couldn't be repaired to shift reliabily and without rattles.

If the shifter isn't pulling the transmission out of gear consistently or the neutral gate adjustment needs frequent maintenance, the problem is often the linkage lever arms mounted on the side of the transmission. The rectangular holes in these levers are supposed to fit tightly over the studs sticking out of the transmission. However, the lever holes wear over time and get sloppy. This allows the lever to move around and change the neutral gate adjustment. The fix is to buy new reproduction levers from Long Island Corvette Supply.



That describes the same or similar problem I had with the stock shifter in my car, too - i.e., shift lever rectangluar holes on the 1-2 and 3-4 shift levers being more 'oblong' than rectangular in shape. The oblong shape allowed the shift lever to rotate around the axis of the shifter fork stub. I had wondered why the shift linkage in my car seemed to always have some 'extra throw' to it, once in gear .. ? ..
It wasn't until I took the side cover off the transmission to inspect for and repair a broken synchro ring that the problem was discovered. The verdict was that a previous owner had beat the HS out of this tranny and shifter by banging gears .. ! .. I was able to hammer down and form the slotted holes on the shift levers into the more rectangular shape required so that the shift lever fit a lot more tightly to the stub shaft. This took care of most of the slop, but not all of it.

John