Ok, a happy ending to this thread, and with out sounding like a smart ars, all I have to say about this experience is, if you’ve removed these SM420 shift lever retainers (while the trans is still in the truck mind you) with a pair of screw drivers, a board with nails in it, a PVC pipe or any other make shift set up then I commend you, you are truly one heck of a back yard mechanic. You can push down with a lot of thing but you have to lock into the opening at the same time, which means the inner half shell has to be compressed a little before the retainer is. Then both have to be compressed and twisted. Just simply pressing down on the retainer is not enough because you have to grab the flats in the opening of the retainer enough to unlock it.
This is the retainer in mine as I found it. Someone not using the correct tool at sometime in the past had already buggered it up.
Although it took a lot of time to re-engineer a “Shift Lever Remover Tool” it was worth it in the end. Now it’s simply a matter of going to the toolbox and in a few seconds removing or install the lever in the truck.
With the transmission in the truck it’s a lot different then having the transmission out of truck on the floor in front of you. The shift tower is around 6” further forward of the face of the dash. In the truck one has to wedge his body under the dash to get any down force at all on the spring and remember the lever is still sticking up in the way in the neutral position. Even with the proper tool and wedging myself under the dash, I still couldn’t get enough down force on it to compress the spring. So after many tries I ended up using some leverage. It’s another story with the transmission out of the truck, it would be much easier because you can stand over it and put your body weight down on the tool. Quite often when doing some of this work without a helper, I have to go through a lot of extra steps such as using levers and special jigs, which make it possible for one man to do the job.
I found this handle at a garage sale one day and thought it might be of some use one day. That day was today!
http://www.pbase.com/dennygraham/image/117827958/large Here is what my pressure foot and drive dogs for my Shift Lever Remover & Installer ended up looking like. As you might have noticed, mine is slid over the lever so you have to remove the knob, where the original K353 tool is slotted so you do not have to remove the knob. I figured its not a problem for me to unscrew the knob whenever I would do this.
http://www.pbase.com/dennygraham/image/117827971/large Here’s my lever with the retainer unlocked. I simply lean my body on the closest end to compress the spring and gave the tool a twist. Installation will be just as simple now.
http://www.pbase.com/dennygraham/image/117827961 What the book doesn’t clearly show.
http://www.pbase.com/dennygraham/image/117827974 Now at last, I can drop that big old SM420 out the bottom for it’s rebuild and finish pulling the short block for it’s operation.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL
