The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop 53 chevy shifter adjustment problems

hello i have a 53 chevy wagon 235 three on the tree. took manafold off and had to disconnect 2nd and trd gear shifting arm on top. when i went to put it back together everything went south on me. the shifter inside gos all the way up and to the left and will not go past netural.opened up shifter box on steering col. and not sure what to look for? one of my questions is the bolts on the bottom of shifter box do they need to be loosened to move shifter box and levers up to get the right clearance at shifting lever and bottom of steering wheel? 2 and 3/4 inchs i think? any suggestions on what i might have did wrong or what i can do to correct it. ive read and reread instructions in manual and cant seem to get it. thanks ted

Hy teddyjames, since nobody else wants to help you with your problem, I"ll give it a shot. If all you did was remove a shift rod to gain clearance, it should all just fall back together. I think the problem must be in the shifter box on the column. You have to put the shift lever inside the vehicle in the neutral position, if you can't something in the shifter box is stopping that. Start by putting the levers on the transmission in neutral, and see if that allows the shifter box to line up as it should, hope that helps.

northern brother,
thanks for the reply. i do need to get her back on the road again. my brother that lives in spokane wa. is going to take his 53 shifter gate apart at the same time viva cell phones and see if we cant find the problem this way thanks again i will let you know the out come ted

Have you checked to make certain that you didn't move to shift levers on the transmission and then get the wrong linkage rods hooked up to the wrong lever. Unless you moved something around on the colume and didn't interfere with the linkage it should go back together as 3B said. Don't start adjusting the linkage until you know for sure that the shift levers are correct. I would put the tranny levers in the neutral position and the same with the shift lever on the colume and then I cannot see why it wouldn't go together correctly.

Do you have a shop manual?????

TJ:
Here's how I did the 3 speed adjustment on my '49.
1. Put the shift levers on the tranny in the neutral position. If you can't find that position, look at my photos on webshots (link below) in the tranny rebuild album. There are pics of all the relative arm positions to the gears selected.
2. Take off the cover of your column shifter box. If you didn't loosen the box from the column, the box itself should not need adjustment relative to the column. Loosen the two shift rods from the arms on the box so that the rods will slide up and down the arm lock down bolts smoothly.
3. Look inside the column box. You may need to remove some grease to see clearly. The two slots looking up at you and the tab from the shift lever itself form the "Neutral Gate". Put your column shift lever inside the cab into the neutral position. Move the arms attached to your steering column box so that the tab inside the box moves smoothly up and down into the slots inside the box which are a part of the box shift arms. This is the neutral position in the box.
4. Now the tranny arms are in neutral, the tab in the shift box is in neutral and your shift lever in the cab is in neutral.
5. Insert the shift rods (into the correct shift box lever arms) gently, making sure that the neutral gate doesn't move inside the shift box and that the tab and slots are still aligned.
6. Tighten down on each shift rod hold down bolt until they are fairly snug and won't move on the rod making sure that the tab and slots remain lined up.
7. Get someone to watch the tab movement in and out of the slots in the shift box as you try to shift between gears inside the cab with your shifter. Clutch pedal fully depressed!
8. If the shift lever allows you to go through all gears smoothly, you're done! If it hangs up anywhere, go out and check the neutral gate in the box and readjust the rod and clamp down bolts a tad to get it right.
9. Once everything seems good, get under the truck while someone goes through all the gears making sure that each shift arm position on the side of the tranny is correct and positioned fully into its detent. If they are hanging up anywhere or not going fully in, you will have to readjust the shift rods at the steering column again (still making sure the neutral gate is aligned).

Biggest thing, start everything from the neutral position, everything else adjusts to that.

49 geezer,
thats what i call breaking it down. thank you very much. i will go out and give it a try. i looked for your webshots but did not see a place to get on them? the thread above yours had his webshots but i could not find yours. i would really like check those pictures out. thanks so-oo very much again for yours and everyone elses help. ted

Sorry; forgot to add the link.

http://community.webshots.com/user/geezer