What's up H.A.M.B ers!! I have been searching on the Internet for a conversion floor shifter for my 1953 Plymouth cranbrook I am building. It still has the 218 flat 6 with the Hydrive ******. It has a 3 speed column shift, and I want to change it to the floor. Like those real nice swan type. Please let me know if this can be done. Thanks!!!
I'd love to know this too! Buddy I work with says it's an easy thing to do but he was pretty vague on the details...then he quit. heh oh well I'm sure someone out there has an answer and if I find out I'll for sure let you know. I'm off to work on my cranny this week. Kerry
Yes, it can be done, but the mopar trannies have what is called a "selector type" transmission shifter arrangement. I've done this many, many years ago but describing it clearly is not so easy. Your trans has a main lever hanging down the side of the case that swings back and forth. Which set of gears it shifts into ( R / 1st or 2nd / 3rd) is determined by a second lever (the 'selector') at the rear top of the case. When that top lever is pulled forward, the side lever moves between Rev and/or 1st gear. When the lever, which is spring loaded to the rear, is not being pulled, the side lever moves between 2nd and/or 3rd. Unfortunately, I haven't mastered the simple skills required to upload a drawing to this forum that would illustrate the way I did it. But, I built a shifter ***embly that consisted of a plate ( 3/16" or 1/4" thickness) that had brackets or tabs that allowed bolting the plate to the trans alongside the tailhousing. The plate was maybe 6" tall and I attached a shift lever, using an old tie rod end (remember this was 1962 and I was a teenager then) to the lower part of the plate. I welded a tba on the shift lever to connect to the trans side lever with a shift rod linkage. So far so good for 2nd & 3rd gear. To get Rev/1st I had to move the little selector lever. So, I used a piece of maybe 3/8" rod and formed a piece that ran horizontally along side the shift lever and the mounting plate, forming a "slot" wide enough to allow the shift lever to move back and forth easily, but not sloppily. The ends of the 3/8" rod were bent 90* and at the rear the bent part went through a hole in the side plate. On the backside of the plate I put suitable coil spring on that piece of rod with a washer and cotter pin to hold it in place. At the front, the bent part of the rod also went through the plate, but this time through a horizontal slot vs a hole. On the inside of the plate, that piece of rod had a pivot point fabricated so it would 'hinge'. Now, if you are following this so far, what we have is a shift lever attached to the trans, it moves back and forth, shifting through 2nd/ neutral / 3rd and is held close to the mounting plate by the spring loaded rod running along side it. Now, for Rev / 1st. Inside the plate, at the pivoting end of the rod, the rod goes verticle a bit (1 1/2" to 2" or so as I recall) and that verticle rod is connected to the selector lever by some type of link. It can be a rod type link, or a piece of small cable, whatever, just so that when the 3/8" side rail is pivoted (by moving the shift lever to the left in the same manner as any floor shift 3 speed) the top of the verticle rod moves the selector lever and....voila'....you have Rev or 1st gear! (you will probably have to modify that top/rear lever to stick up instead of down so the selector moves in the correct direction) Simple.....No? The material doesn't have to be the exact dimensions or round rod necessarily. That's just what I recall using at the time. It just has to do the job. Ray
As Ray describes, it can be done and many many years ago there were shifters to be found in the catalogues. The other option would be to swap to a 4/5/6 speed... .
I believe it was Foxcraft that used to produce the floor conversion shifters for the Mopar 3 speed. Remeber seeing one on E-Bay about a year ago that went for insane money. For what they paid for the shifter they could have purchased the T5 adaptor and transmission and ended up with an O/D.
Just a heads up with the hydrive you may not be able to do a transmission swap easily. Welcome to the site. You need to upload some pics of your new toy
Another option is a floor shift transmission from a earlier MOPAR car or three speed truck. These were once easy to find and worked well, but nowadays the T-5 swap would likely be just as cheap and save some gas to boot.
I have a 1963 Almquist catalog and there is no listing for early MOPAR floor shifters. I thought about converting my '46 Plymouth but have never been able to find a floor shifter for it.
Amendment to my post #3. In an earlier effort on my part to do this I used a GM starter solenoid mounted to the ******/floorboard/somewhere under there, to pull the selector lever for 1st & Rev on 'command' with a push****on switch on the shift handle. It worked, but even then I had to admit it was kinda crudely done. It could be done that way or similar and done neatly with a little effort and depending on whether you are running 6 volts or 12, there may be a sufficiently strong, but smaller size, solenoid (door lock/trunk release etc.) that would do the job. The best thing about that approach is it makes fabrication much simpler since you can use a simple pivot for the shift lever and don't have to build the mechanical gizmo to mechanically move the selector lever. hmmmm...........just had another thought. A person could also use one of those older style shift handles with the little pull handle just beneath the shift knob and use a suitable pull cable to operate the selector lever. uh oh......brain fade is setting in, can only take so much hard thinkin'.............gotta go now......need my rest! Ray
Thanks everyone!! Found a guy that has a foxcraft floor shifter for my "selector" style ******. I just want to say that I am so glad that I joined this site because I have gotten a tremendous amount of info and help from some great people!!!
Mine has a home made shifter made with parts from the same type ****** ..... I have drawings here .... if you click the drawings it will open them bigger.
Hnstray: I built a setup like that for my friend's '49 Ford with Dodge D-500 and selector shift... I used a 24" length of 3/4" O.D. tube (about '045" wall thickness) with a 2" piece of slightly larger tube telescoped onto the top. (to insert a Ford starter ****on) The tubular 'stick' was attached to a bracket about 5" from the lower end, which linked to the main shift arm. Like you, I used an old Chev starter solenoid with a cable and crimped terminals. Escapement was by a coil spring that pushed the selector into the 2nd/3rd mode. Push the ****on in, you had 1st/reverse. So, to go thru the gears, you pushed the ****on, and shifted from neutral to 1st, then let go of the ****on. Shift forward as fast as you like, you never missed 2nd. I called it the "Electric Shift". (not very original, Hudson had the name in '51)
Ray, I'm trying to adapt a Mr Gasket floor shift kit to my 56 Plymouth trans. Do you have drawings or a sketch of the setup you described? I'm sure we could figure out a way to post them, if you can produce them. Thx Glenn
I'd like to see the results posted, as Mark's Ford was the center of attention with his 'click for first' trickery...Naturally, I'd like to see it repeated. The 'Electric Shift' really grabbed 'em, but was simple enough to do, and when improved on, was trouble free, tight, and precise. The original was drilled right thru the tubing, and rotated from a 1/4" bolt as its axis. Going thru the small diameter tube, there was scarcely enough room for the 2 wires to p*** thru! (14 gauge; This was still a 6 volt system...) I upgraded it with matching flat plates of cold rolled at the rotating 'friction point', with 'Hurst-type' plastic disc between, made it smooth as silk. Gusseted flat strap bracketry supported the parent 'plate', a piece of 1/4" cut in a 2" circle, welded vertically (back side) Matching 2" disc was bolted thru the discs' centers, 7/16" bolt with 1/2" long shank and pinch nut, plastic disc between. Shift tubing welded on outside of rotating disc. Excess bolt thread length was cut off after nut was final adjusted. I always resented the shift tube, 'conduit-looking pipe' instead of a tapering solid stick... The '39 Chevy solenoid was mounted to an angle bracket on the frame, and made an audible 'Clack' when the ****on was pushed, I never insulated the solenoid to silence that...It sounded too cool to fix! Looking back, that stick could have been made from a piece of Shelby tube, 1/2" O.D., 1/8" wall. Chuck it in a lathe with offset tailstock, center support, and taper it from the bottom: Start with its 1/2" O.D., tapering it gradually to 5/16" at the top. Run a cable down the center, with spring escapement, ala the 'LOWCAR method'... Mechanical relay at bottom is activated when center ****on in knob is pushed, (still uses the old GM solenoid...or one of the new 'trick door opening solenoids' the kustom boys use) Worth it!
Push down for 1st/reverse on the first example, right? (Was that a 'Spark-o-matic' by chance, Daliant?)
Another fairly straight forward option is a 1975-86 Chrysler A833 4 spd OD trans (Volares/Aspens, truck and vans), use a very simple adapter plate, applicable clutch disc. The thing with this or any other trans swap, is you need to deal with an ebrake, or swap in a modern diff, such as a Mopar 8 1/4 diff. Pic of the adapter plate, and trans for you, contact hitek on this forum for further info.
I built this shifter for a '50 Dodge with a 3-speed transmission (w Fluid Drive; altho' that doesn't matter) This was back in 1964 or so. There was a donor Plymouth that had the same type of transmission; so I used it to come up with something workable before changing alot of stuff in the Dodge. Very similar to the one daliant posted. Worked very well, and never missed a 1-2 shift because the action/movement of the levers helped the "selector arm" pivot up and it slid into 2nd smoothly. The drawing was done by memory as the shifter & car are long gone. gatz
I don't know who made either of the shifters I posted, the first one was on my 46 Plymouth when I got it, the other was just an illustration the someone posted on here that I saved.
standard three speed h works pretty much the same as any hurst Sent from my SM-G900P using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
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