Is it possible to column shift a T5?

Will you listen to yourself?
That t5 is some of that new fancy shit that shouldn't be in the car

 

Yup, guy next door back in the day had a morris minor wagon with 4 spd on the column

 

Agree but if is a column shift you want then go for it. Tons of options out there that don't require recreating the world. After all anybody who walks by your car and says "Hey look, a column shift. That's cool!" won't give a hoot if it's connected to a T5 or a T85 or a T89 or a Saginaw.

 

Took the words right out of my mouth!!

If I remember correctly(!) , isn't the HiAce 5-speed shift pattern a mirror image of a normal floor mounted 5-speeder?

 

Opel and I believe Mercedes in some models in the 60s had a 4speed column shift.

 

I'm putting a column shifted 3sp OD in my '41 Coupe, behind a Inline.
I just couldn't put a floorshift in my taildragger.
OD ratio is nearly the same, just shift less.
Plus its like theft proof, these punkass kids today don't know how to drive 3 on the tree.

 

Where's a pictures of these 5 speed columns?

 

Of course it is possible with the right ingenuity. The Raven has a 3-speed trans and only has a single gate column shifter: up, middle, and down. I can shift all four gears 1,2,3, and R with this setup. Arthur Bentas designed this in the 50's and you might be able to figure this out in a similar way.

These are the instructions I give to anyone who has had to move the Raven, as in transporters, etc.

<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <woNotOptimizeForBrowser/> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--> [FONT=&quot]o [/FONT]The SHIFT LEVER has just three (3) positions and NO "H" pattern yet the car has 3 forward gears and 1 reverse.
- DOWN (Reverse and 2nd)
- MIDDLE (Neutral)
- UP (1st and 3rd)
[FONT=&quot]o [/FONT]The CLUTCH has three positions
- UP (Fully Engaged)
- IN-NORMAL (1st to 2nd, 2nd to 3rd, and 3rd to 2nd)
- IN-BOTTOMED OUT (Move Shift Gate, 1st or Reverse)
[FONT=&quot]o [/FONT]How to SHIFT ....
- Put the lever in the MIDDLE (Neutral) Position
- Start the car and let it warm up a bit
- 1st Gear - From the shift lever in the Neutral Position, Depress the clutch all the way until it hits a bit of resistance and then press it all the way until it totally Bottoms out. There is a little mechanical button on the floor that when fully depressed it moves the shift gate from the 2nd-3rd gate position to the 1st-Reverse gate position.
=> Move the lever UP for 1st gear. Let up on the clutch normally.
- Reverse Gear - From the shift lever in the Neutral Position, Depress the clutch all the way until it hits a bit of resistance and then press it all the way until it totally Bottoms out. There is a little mechanical button on the floor that when fully depressed it moves the shift gate from the 2nd-3rd gate position to the 1st-Reverse gate position.
=> Move the lever DOWN for Reverse gear. Let up on the clutch normally.
- 2nd Gear - Depress the clutch normally (Do not Bottom it out) and move the lever DOWN past Neutral into the DOWN shift lever position. Let up on the clutch normally.
- 3rd Gear - Depress the clutch normally (Do not Bottom it out) and move the lever UP past Neutral into the UP shift lever position. Let up on the clutch normally.

The T5 is a totally different beast that a side-shifting box but with some ingenuity anything is possible.

Good luck,
Joe

 

A ton of model a roadsters ran column shift, after all it is a bitch fitting 3 pedals and a shifter in a model a or t. My 6' 1" ass is playing twister to fit in my '27 roadster with a early t-10, i would instantly column shift it if I could

Btw wasnt the niemcamp(bad spelling) roadster column shift? and it was a bad ass race car!! basicly if you column shift a T5 you overcome most of the gayness of it being a modern tranny and in my book are slightly cooler from an engineering standpoint

 

I don't think it would be that difficult to do with a couple of push pull cables. You have the forward/backward movement of the gear change which would be the up/down motion of the column shifter and the side to side motion of the gear selector which would be the in/out motion of the column shifter.

So, to put it in first gear, you would pull back on the column shifter which would pull a lever mounted on the T5 shifter rod to the passenger's side. The cable would be mounted on the passenger's side of the T5. If you used the original shifter, you would have to pull the shifter to the driver's side and mount the cable on that side. Then, when you move the column shifter up, another push/pull cable would pull the lever back into first gear or if you used the original shifter, it would push the shifter forward. That cable would be mounted on the tailshaft..... Does that make sense?

They would prob have to be some fairly heavy push/pull cables or some pretty crazy bell-crank setup. Regardless....it's do-able. It would allow the use of Camaro and Mustang T5 tail shafts....

 

this info is wrong . i have owned a four on the tree . it was in a 61 mercedes 190

 

I would head right over to a decent truck junkyard and see how the later model cabovers did it. Could their column be a viable swap, maybe if stripped bare? Will give you some ideas, anyway. I have a 3-on-the-tree and really like it, all about novelty, but I wouldn't want it in something that had to go fast. Ditto on the anti-theft benefits. My brother-in-law, same age as me, good stint in the military, just gets a puzzled look when he looks at my column shift-he has absolutely no idea how it works.

 

I had a friend that column shifted a toploader 4 speed. 1st-4th was on the column then he would put that in neutral and had a small floorshiter for reverse.... Hokey but worked!!

Sent from my DROID device using the TJJ mobile app

 

I suppose if you were dedicated enough to do all the work it could be accomplished by using a column activated/5 position switch and solenoids at the trans to actually shift the gears.
Or maybe even air activated shifters like a drag car has.....BUT it suddenly seems pretty far overboard an wacky now that I read the ideas in this post/Ha....Ahh=just forget that....

 

I haven't read through this, but stumbled on it searching for something else. Not sure if this is linked yet, but there was another multi-page thread about this topic:

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=289218

 

Panhard of the 50's (Z and PL) have 4 on the tree just like prety much every french cars of the area but they are internaly gated and cable shifted, to me this solution is the tiket...
You need 2 cables 1 for up and down motion, second for side motion. I heard of some people putting Alfa 5 speed boxes into Panhard and they're still column shifted.
I'll try to get picture of the Panhard system.
The only problem I see would be to pack all that crap under the floor, maybe with a Mustang or Camaro T5 so you could have the stub of the shifter under the seat with all the cable bracketery inside the seat riser.

 

Send me $75,000 and I'll work on it

 

A family member owns and operates a fleet of local delivery medium duty trucks. His policy is "We only hire disabled Vets." The fleet is Mack with a ten speed Road Ranger transmission and most are setup for a column shift operation. Long term dedicated employees and he fixes a rig up specifically for a individual driver. Males and females alike. They have coined their own name to indicated their spirit.' We can do it and we will. Our way!" To answer your question yes. Any manual transmission shifting linkage system can be adapted. I have seen T-5, T-10 and even the old original 4 speeds being shifted off the column.
Normbc9

 

Here's a Panhard shifter, it just slides over the steering shaft





And here's how it's attached to an original gear box

Since the grid is in the gearbox there is almost no limitation to how many gears you want to shift, the only built in feature of the lever is the reverse: you need to pull the shifter to put it in reverse.

 

well we now know they make 3, 4 and 5 speed column shifters, I drove a mitsubishi in the gulf war with a 5 speed.
that is and ambitious project, let us know how it turns out.

 

Even better, a 5 speed with an external overdrive, you then essentially have a double overdrive transmission. If it's gonna be a column shifter it should be like the dog leg 5 on the floor transmissions with reverse over first, this is ideal for road racing too. if 5th gear is 0.71:1 ratio then the external overdrive gear ratio should be 0.59 to 0.62. You get two advantages with this configuration, 1. you can split all 5 gears in overdrive with 5-Over being the fastest ratio and essentially an Overdrive within Overdrive, 2. it also means less wear and tear on the engine than a conventional 5 speed. The only disadvantage is the fact it may not be as fast as a 6 speed but its pretty damn close.

 

Hmnnn...I knew working the night shift I'd come across some good, solid replies....like the one from a newbie on a 7 YO post....