I have a T56 transmission going in my 40 Ford coupe. In mocking up the body onto a new frame this weekend it appears that the shifter is going to be very much further back than I anticipated. Correct me if I'm wrong, but can't the shifter be moved towards the front of the casing about 10" on a T56? If anyone out there has done it, how expensive is it? Thanks for any help.
The shifter can indeed be moved to the forward inspection plate in the mid-section of the transmission. Not a cheap conversion, however. D&D Performance is one of the vendors able to do this change. Keisler probably can, too.
Yep! What chickenridgerods said. Also, give McLeod a call. They used to sell the kits to do yourself. Since they got purchased, things have change a little though. They could at least point you in the right direction... http://www.mcleodind.com/index.html Also, I think McLeod had a way of externally locating the shifter forward without diving into the inspection covers. Can't remember how it worked exactly....
That's why people use T5s or, for higher horsepower applications, TKO500/600 - you get four shifter position choices on the TKO.
Without getting too far off the subject at hand, depending on the T56, some are rated for more than a TKO500/600. My T56 is rated for 550 all day long. The output shaft was the weak point, so if they're converted to the 31 spline Viper shaft they can handle quite a bit more. Just depends. RS Gear sells a T56 that is rated for 700, I believe. That's probably about the max though...
I remember looking into Keisler when I did mine, but decided on that being too expensive- coulda bought a fresh TKO by that point instead of a junkyard T56. Depending on how far you're needing to go forward, I made a little homemade "dogbone" and layback shifterstick that works pretty well. The throw was a little long and sloppy so I added a good shifter (can't remember which off the top of my head) and that helped. If you want, I can give you a pic of what I got and you can see. It's nothing pretty but it'll get covered up by a boot eventually anyways... Let me know.
It looks like I need about one foot of movement towards the firewall - I want to run a full bench seat, and w/o moving the shifter forwards theres no chance at all. I would love to see pictures of the "dogbone" you put in to move yours. Might be a less expensive solution. Thanks.
Ouch! A foot is quite a bit. Is that just so you can shift it or so that the shifter clears the seat? I guess I mean with the shifter in 2nd or 4th, it needs to go a foot forward? I don't know if you can get that with my little adapter, but here's what I was going for, except mine was the low-buck, low-tech route! Call it hacked if you want, but it allows me to drive the car and it works just fine for right now... Neutral First Second From the top You can probably move it forward a good amount, depending on how you mount the shifter. I think as long as the shifter can clear the seat, you can get the handle to do just about anything you want. You could do a layback shifter and turn it around, or something like mine. Hurst makes a ton of shifters in different layouts, check them out. I don't think I'd go much longer than mine because the front of the adapter/dogbone will start to hit in the front on the 1st gear shifts... Just what I did, but I'm a cheapa$$ Good luck with yours and let me know if you have any more questions.
If the seat hasn't been upholstered yet, how about a notch to clear the shifter like they did for the tri-five seats before Hurst came up with the dogleg C/P shifter. Between that and a shifter similar to 35Pontiac's you should be close to what you need. Good luck with it.
I like what you did - thats a good solution, and it may work yet for me. I'll know for sure how much forward movement I'll need in a couple of days when the floor goes in. From eyeballing it I thought I'd need 8 - 12", but that may prove to be too much. Either way, thanks to everyone who replied. I'm a rookie at this stuff and the help is very much appreciated.
Sure thing. If you need any more info about it, PM me and I'll try to help out with specifics. It's pretty simple though and there are probably better ways to do it, but that's how I did it.. Good luck!
I've seen setups with a horizontal rod and 2 hiems to move shifters. I don't have any pics, but I would think with a small bridge or platform that bolts onto the trans built where you need the shifter to be and link it back to the original shift tower would take care of it on the cheap. Hope that makes some sense.
The stock and a couple of the aftermarket shifters (Hurst, Billet Products) for the 2004-06 GTO use a "remote" shifter of this concept. Possibly something worth looking in to if you have the space under your floorpan; would need to whip up your own custom one, though.
That GTO shifter is a pretty cool idea, but I don't know how easy that would be to make... Maybe if you had two shifters, you could cannabilize one and make it the forward shifter by cutting the ball off the bottom and just using the rest of the mechanism to hold the remote stick in place. Then make a bracket, but you couldn't use a heim, because the sticks need to be rigid when moving sideways...
You could do something like this, but reversed: http://www.mustangsplus.com/xcart/product.php?productid=2444&cat=0&page=1
I cant stand how a t56 shifts....ill take my TKO anyday of the week. That Mcleod unit to relocate the shifter is the way to go..ive used one for a 1990 mustang t56 vipr spec swap before.
I did mine without taking the transmission apart, but it required cutting the shifter shaft down as well as re-working the shifter bucket lever. All in all about three hours of messing around time. I did it because no one made a kit, but Keislers kit would be the way I would go. -Jason
I like this idea, it should be simple to make and would be pretty solid. Similar to the GTO remote shifter, but maybe a little easier to duplicate. I may go with something like this down the road...
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