Picked up a nice Saginaw 4 speed and comp plus shifter a couple days ago. Inside of the trans looks great. Shifter looks great. Didn’t shift very well and no reverse. Trans shifts fine with the shifter disconnected. Shifter didn’t feel right. 1-4 was ok but no reverse. 1-4 got better after adjusting the rods but still no reverse. Took it apart and cleaned the silver paint someone coated it in and made sure it was oiled up and clean. Didnt see any reason for reverse to not engage. These shifters can sometimes be a little tough in reverse. I did confirm that the pin was capable of reverse once apart. Put the shifter back on and without the handle I had reverse using pliers. Noticed when installing the shifter handle the nut plate was very close to the shifter body. It hit it when trying to get engaged reverse. So I did a little clearancing with the bench grinder. Shifts great now. I didn’t have reverse at anytime with the handle on. Also was never able to do so with pliers with it removed before I took apart. So who knows what I did. But it works now. Maybe this might help the next bozo messing with one.
That plate with the threaded holes goes on the other side of shifter. the two tabs on the side of it fit into the slots on the other side. You can see the slots in this picture.
Ok Bozo strikes again Looks better now Reverse was not capable even with the handle removed before I took ot apart and cleaned ot up. It did take some effort to get the plunder thingy to push all the way when apart. Anywho. It works now
Here’s the trans before I bought it wonder it the guy that wrote 4x4 on it was the same guy that messed with the shifter.
I ran one of those in my 65 Chevelle. Had the Vega 4 speed that one of my mentors said it has the comfortable first gear. With a 3.08 rear gear it worked pretty good.
Also. If this shim wear plate thingamabob is backwards, it shifts like **** The one closest to the shifter Makes a world of difference when the parts are in the right place
Kinda tough when the monkey ahead of you re***embles it wrong Every thing on the planet has been designed and built by a human( to the best of my knowledge) and being a fine example of the genus I’ve no problem taking things apart to try and repair them, well until they got really serious about making things tamper proof and disposable , those friction welded plastic switches REALLY piss me off.
In my much younger days we used to fine tune Hurst and other brand shifters with a hammer. They were wore out but that's all most of us could afford.
I look at it like this. Maybe someone couldn’t get it to work correctly, got frustrated and traded this off. I get the benefit of a decent priced trans and shifter. Plus I learneded something. My first attempt at dis***embling a shifter like this had a happy ending.
My first go at fixing a shifter was about 30 years ago and I have to admit it was humbling, being young and ****y I thought it was a pretty simple thing and didn’t pay nearly enough attention to how it came apart, took a dozen or so tries till I got it back together and functional Did learn something but I’ve forgotten as I’ve also been blessed with a good dose of craft. Thankfully I’m pretty good at just figuring things out on the fly, but it would be really nice to just remember and not go through all the rigmarole and missteps of figuring it out
The correct bolts that hold the shift handle on only stick out a couple of threads. I've bought small parts for my shifters from this vendor a few times. https://www.ebay.com/str/shifterdr?...rdr|folenttp:1&_trksid=p3542580.m47492.l74602
The Jalopy Journal
