Crossy's son

Well this is something my Dad and I did one day to replace the “bad” (if that word is strong enough) shifter that the 92 had. If your shifter has some play or is completely wasted, this is just something you could do. All you really need is a welder and some hand tools, Drill bit, dye set, etc.

Yea it had some “play in it”


Only the 89-92 trucks have this style shifter mount, 93’s have a bolt on style shifter and don’t have this issue, some late 92’s have the newer style shifter too.

Got a 1” OD ¾” ID piece of pipe about 3.5” long, and sweated another smaller piece of pipe into it that, that measures ¾” OD and ½” ID . This is the part that will slide over the shift stub coming out of the trans.




Got some stainless ½ rod and put a 3” offset bend in it where it needed it and then put another bend in it to put the **** straight and not on an angle. Kinda put the shifter into the pipe slip over that was already sweated together, slipped the pipe over the shift stub and put the shifter stick down in there and decided where the best spot to bend it would be. If you bend it too low IT WILL hit the ash tray in 1st gear, so might as well bend it to clear the ash tray because even if you’re not a smoker you’ll find yourself wanting to put stuff In there (like change.)

Here’s the shifter stick with a **** already on the end, Ground it down and ran a 3/8 dye down it for the universal **** from the “HELP” line, (the factory **** was gone)



Here’s some pics of the shifter stick inside the slipover, pretty obvious already where you’re gonna need to weld it. Make sure its all mocked up first though, in the truck, on the stub and where you want it..then take a sharpie and mark on the stick and on the pipe where it needs to be lined up so you can hold it there while you weld it…





Here it is all together- (stick is not polished yet like it was in the other picture up top)

Crossy's son

Next, We drilled two holes on each side of the shifter, at 9 o’ clock and 3 o’ clock position on the “slip over” pipe. Tapped the holes for some set screws we bought at the the local hardware store, ¼” I believe

same thing on the other side. NOTE- the mark on the shifter stub, how far down the slip over pipe goes.


Then ground a flat on both sides of the stub so the set screws have a nice flat surface to “lock” to, only ground the flat down to the line that we marked on the stub previously, and measured, and ground the flat up above the top set screw in the slip over pipe. Grind the flat on both sides of course.



So with the shifter stick welded into the little pipe (all the way around), and the little pipe welded into the big pipe (sweating them into each other first makes it easier to weld).

Slide it down on there and tighten up the allen-head set screws , Polish the stick etc.

[B]Heres the final results[B]

Neutral-


1st gear-


Reverse-


It looks like theres no room between the **** and the seat in reverse, the seat is all the way up and REALLY there is about 2" of room between the seat and the ****. Picture makes it look close

Its VERY comfortable, the **** is nice and round to fit your hand, 5th gear is easy now, no stretch involved.
The factory design was just prone to fail.

Hope this gives someone some ideas ,

BearKiller

That is a good looking fix for a common problem.

It sure polished up pretty.

I have seen every kind of back-yard fix imaginable on those shifters after some slam-shifting kid has been trying to show off and broke the stub.


I have seen the "later-model" (slabbed together with bolts) bent-shifters on some pretty early trucks; in fact, I have a non-I/C '91 that has the later version.

My theory is that, when the old-style shifter gets broken or otherwise messed up, some people just replaced the whole shifter with the later version.

All that needs be done to swap is to remove the snap-ring, pull out the old, and replace with the new.

Most of the people that have done those barn-yard repairs on the broken shifters have no idea that the broken stub can easily be removed and taken to the work-bench; instead, they do their welding right in the floor-board.

Crossy's son

Yea the previous owner had like 3 hose clamps on it and some offbrand jb weld in there none of it worked because i had to use a 3/4 socket on the end of a 3/8 drive LONG extension to even get it up on the trailer... But the 3 empty bottles of methodone found under the seat could explain alot

BK, can you tell me exactly how this shifter goes together from the factory? Is there a big threaded stud that comes out of the stick and screws into the stub? And it looks as if the threaded peice is held in with rubber that goes bad.

i think if this happened under warranty people took it into the dealer and they put the newer shifter on it with bolts (like a hurst shifter mount) and the 1 year only (93) bent stick is kinda cool but i don't get why they didn't do it all years. Must of been complaints from prev. years.

BearKiller

The early shifters have only a big threaded "stub" just like the one you show in the pictures.

Your's should have about another inch-plus of threads above where it is broken.

The bottom end of the straight stick is threaded into steel, but that threaded portion is sort of captured in some kind of flexible rubber business, such that, when they get some age on them, the stick has quite a bit of "slop".

The reason the factory "stick" for that type is straight and not shaped is due to :

1. The stick is simply screwed straight onto that threaded stub and there isn't enough "swing"-room to screw on a bent stick.

2. Even if you were able to get a bent stick screwed on there, the bend would always be swinging/pivoting around on the stub and apt to end up anywhere.

3. Even if you were able to screw on a bent stick and get it to end up where you want it, the leverage of normal shifting, along with the constant vibration of the transmission, would soon have the shifter swinging all over the place.



It is do-able to remove the broken shifter-stub, take it to the work-bench, and re-work it to resemble the later style; then, build a custom bent stick that bolts onto it just like the later ones do.

Crossy's son

Thanks for the explanation BK , A hurst shifter of any kind looks like the holes would line up on the "newer" style mount, Hurst has been using the two bolt mount design for a million years.

BearKiller

A few months ago, a good friend and customer had one of his service-trucks in our shop, an early-80s Chevy 1-ton with the tried and true in-destructible 4-speed.

When the work was done, one of the shop Einsteins jumped in it to back it outside.

When he tried to put it in REVERSE, the shifter came off in his hand.

It had obviously been poorly welded and it had broken loose at the weld, about six-inches above the floor.

When the guy that owned the truck came back, I asked him why on earth someone had been welding on the shifter.

He said that when they had dropped the transmission for a clutch-replacement, they couldn't get the transmission low enough, nor the truck high enough, to get the stick to clear the floor-board; (bear in mind that these guys were born with a wrench in their hand) so..........., he just torched off the offending shifter-stick and, after the clutch was replaced, welded it back on.

I took a pair of Channel-locks, pressed down and turned a 1/4-inch on that little tin dome-shaped thingie, and handed him the shifter; the look on his face was priceless.

torquefan

I'm surprised to see a 1st gen truck that still had the old style shifter in it. Back when they were still on warranty, I think we updated just about all of them to the new style stick because they all broke.

BearKiller

My 1985 Ford with a 1989 Getrag/Cummins still has an un-broken shifter-stub to which I have attached a custom-designed stick.

I keep the original straight stick under the sleeper-bunk just in case.

That stub is pretty stout and if you are getting rough enough with it to break it, then you have no business driving a truck.







Of course, mine could break tomorrow and make me eat my words.

Crossy's son

The 91' 5spd truck has the original old style shifter and its in perfect shape with no play, but then again that truck only has 107k ,but the 92 only had 120k but apparently some crazy guy drove it around and probably tried to chirp every gear in an 8500# truck

haloman

Looks good. A couple of coats of paint over those welds would look even better.

Crossy's son

Well we put the boot back on it and put a hose clamp on the boot to hold it to the stick .

Cowboy_Customs

Nice work. There is a guy around here with a '93 W350 CC Dump truck that has a full Hurst shifter.

1bad93

yea i wish my truck was like your so i could get your dad to fab one up for me but no my trucks is diffrent. but looks good man.

Crossy's son

I think hes' workin on something for the 93 trucks....