Hey Y'all! I just bought the floor shift conversion for my 52 Chevy. Gonna take the 3 off the tree. I was wandering if anybody has any tips, pointers or something I need to be aware of before I start this project. Thanks for any advise...
If your still using the stock engine and trans you could go with one of these. http://www.nationalchevy***oc.com/7105_1
That one looks like it was copied after the old Sparkomatic shifter I had in my 51 Merc that got hung up between gears all the time. Even a used swap meet Hurst 3 speed shifter will work better then one of those in my book. I'm not flat out saying to not buy one like that but I am saying that in a few months and a broken transmisson you will be looking for a Hurst to replace it with.
If you weld, make a stout bracket to bolt your shifter to. Make sure you use heavy gauge steel. You dont want any play or flex from your bracket. If you dont weld, pay someone to make it for you, or buy the one above. Bolt it to at least three points to the trans. Im ***uming you are running the original 3 speed. Get your hands on a Hurst 3 speed shifter and then play around with the linkage to fine tune it. Itll take a few adjustments to make it shift like ****er, but itll happen. Get a Mr Gasket rubber shift boot or somethin, and call it done!
What brand shifter did you buy ? Reason I ask is because as Mr48chev and Monster said, a Hurst is way above all the rest in quality and fewer issues. I have had some lesser shifters over the years and they are frustrating as hell, sometimes jamming between two gears at the worst possible time. I remember more than one time laying under a car in a white dress shirt trying to unstick one that jammed up...........it ain't fun. The Hurst on my 27 is about 24 years old and has never even had a bushing replaced in it ever. Don
I ran several sparkomatics way back then, even new they would jam. You didn't shift 'em you finessed them. To the OP the only real way to cut the floorboard is to get yourself a hatchet and guess about the right spot and start hacking.
Yep, but make sure the hatchet is really sharp, otherwise your work will look very unprofessional. I had that same flat stick Sparkomatic that you mentioned , PNB. It was the most frustrating shifter I ever owned. We put it on a car we bought my Son when he was 16 so he would have something to drive while we were building him his 65 Olds convertible. Then a few years later I inherited the car back and used it for a work car. If you didn't gingerly shift from 1 to 2 it would jam up between gears and you had to climb under and push the levers back into place. Why we didn't just put a Hurst on it I have no idea.........oh yeah, we were broke, that was why. Don
I bought a new one once and said that I would never own another, I suppose wrong would be an understatement. They say ya just can't fix dumb.
Don't have to look for just a Hurst 3 speed shifter, if you run across a Hurst 4 speed shifter grab it, they will shift a 3 speed ****** just fine, just have one extra position you don't need.
I just did this to my '53. Used a Mr. Gasket "Universal" 3-speed shifter. GINORMOUS piece of ****, but it'll make the gears go. PM me if you want/need any help or just have any questions.
Oh yeah... this too. http://www.ebay.com/itm/14081374342...LX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649#ht_992wt_1270
Looks like the same size hole I ended up with when I put my first shifter in! Fenton Shift Star 200 as I recall. Only took me about two days to do it. Put it in my '51, box said it was for a 53-54, but who pays attention to that stuff when you're 15? Dennis D
The transmission hump unscrews from the rest of the floor. It's in the back seat in those pics. The hole I cut IN the transmission hump was actually only about 5" x 3". The whole operation took me a little over an hour from start to finish.
That is what prompted the Hurst Super boot. Real common to see floors hacked all the hell way back when wasn't it. I bought '64 Impala with a 4 gear once that was hacked so bad that you could drop bear cans down past the shifter (which proved to be pretty handy).
I finally figured out the hump would come out a couple of months later when I replaced the rubber mat with some carpet...... Ah, to be 15 again! Dennis D
I'm on the lookout for a '58 Pontiac floor hump myself. I got a helluva deal on a NOS black full carpet for a '58 Poncho ($24) in hopes that I could make it work relatively easily, but the floor hump looks like it was tapered front to back in the Pontiac, whereas mine is the same width front to back. Since mine unscrews, I figure I'll just cut the hump out of a '58 and try to get it centered in as best as I can, tack it to the old frame and screw it back in. I can pick one up from a junkyard for less than ten bucks. That's why I've been less than precise in any of my cutting of the floor hump. I drove it with the hump completely removed for about the first week. Made me kinda nervous...
Wow this is great! I have an old Hurst shifter laying around so now I htink I will stick it in my 52. Thanks for the pics ragtop. Do you have any pics of the linkeage?
Not at the moment, but I can get some if you need 'em. It is REALLY self-explanatory though. Block your wheels and set your parking brake. Put the transmission in neutral. Make sure BOTH arms are in their center positions pointing down, that's neutral. Check to ensure that both arms are secured TIGHTLY around the shafts they're attached to. Put the little leg of the linkage through the transmission arm and secure with a flat washer and a cotter pin through the hole in the end. Now crawl out from under the car and measure the comfortable throw distance of your shifter. In other words, the distance from your seat to your dash, minus a half inch or an inch, whatever makes you comfortable. Put your shifter at one half that distance. That will be where your neutral is located. Too far back and you won't be able to hit R or 2nd because it will hit the seat, too far forward and you won't get 1st or 3rd because you're beating the **** out of the Spark-o-matic in your dash. Understand? Crawl back under the car and begin threading the threaded knob on the linkage in whichever direction it needs to go to be able to attach to the bottom of the shifter arm. Again, use a flat washer and a cotter pin. NOTE: Make sure second shifter arm is lined up parallel with the first so that you can shift fluidly from 1st to 2nd. If it's off even 1/16" of an inch you'll find you have to wiggle it to engage. Now thread the second threaded knob in whichever direction it needs to go to be able to attach to the second shifter arm. Use a flat washer then a cotter pin. Now, here's a little trick I learned a long time ago when I did this conversion on a '68 GMC truck I owned. I HATED first being to the left and forward. It got in the way of the emergency brake if I should ever need to use it. I wanted first to the left and back. I also hated 3rd being to the right and forward, and preferred it to the right and back, since that was the cruising gear, i.e. higher speeds, and I wanted the shifter at a close grab in case I had to downshift suddenly, or even pop it into neutral in the event of a stuck carb, etc. You can change the positions of 1st and reverse, as well as 2nd and 3rd, by flipping the arm on the transmission over. If it's pointing down, you'll most likely have first to the left and forward, with reverse being to the left and back. Loosening the arm attached to the shaft on the side of the transmission and flipping it over 180 degrees will give you reverse in the left/forward position and 1st in the left/rearward position. Flipping the second arm will give you 2nd in the right/forward position and 3rd in the right/rearward position. THIS is how I personally like my 3 speed shift pattern set up, though I have yet to flip the arms on my own '53.
Rag top, I'd love to do this to the 47 Ford Tudor. The only thing that concerns me is where the shift lever will be relative to my right leg. Everyone puts a 39 top loader in the later fat Fords, but I remember a 41 in high school that had the first Hurst floor shift conversion I'd ever seen, and I was mesmerized! I guess I could always modify the shift "handle" over and up to center it better. Since that summer in the early 60's, a floor shift was part of what made a hot rod.
You could always modify the shifter handle, like you said. Mine is a little close to my leg as well, and I've actually been considering something like I've shown below in my best Windows Paint artistry... Lol.
Hurst , of course. Mounts are easy to make.... Prior to Hurst, we'd buy the Corvette 3 speed shifter and the link rods from the local dealer, and fab a mount for it. Flip the trans shift arms upside down, to have the correct pattern. 4TTRUK
I had a shifter in an O/T car once I just made a new handle out of bar stock that was all bent to fit it's environment. Never did chrome it... That, and the rods would be the easy part, getting the shifter itself in the right spot would be the hard part.
Just a small tip for ya. On most gm steering columns, when you remove the shift mechanisim in the engine bay (the box that the rods coming from the ****** connect to) there is an oblong hole left open. Find a rubber plug from the adjuster hole in the backing plate on drum brakes and with a little t******* it will fit nicely and look like it belongs there. Just a little tip.
Hell yeah! Thanks man! I was just ogling my open dash hole last night, scratching my head trying to figure out what the hell I was going to use to fill it. I have a wicked cool under dash light from a '66 Plymouth Fury III that is a "hole-mount". Until just now I was going to make the hole a little bigger and plug it with that, maybe wire it to the dash lights or something, but I like your idea much better. Less work!
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