So I THOUGHT I stumbled on a cost-free quick and easy solution

[Rich69shortfleet]

For almost all the years I've owned my truck, a 69 shortbox fleetside, it has had a smaller aftermarket steering wheel on it. When I got it the original was severely cracked with chunks missing so it had to go and when I installed power steering there was no longer a need for that bus sized wheel. The new wheel looks good and does the job, horn works and everything so no complaints at all.

HOWEVER, with a smaller wheel the automatic trans column shift handle sticks out way past the rim of the wheel. Which makes it easy to bump into the wrong gear or neutral, I know, it has happened. But I never seriously looked into getting a different shift handle. Most aftermarket ones would be all fancy or billet and not fit the the truck's basically stock look anyway.

Well, the other day I was cannibalizing a 65 Chevelle automatic column shift steering column and to get at a couple of parts I had to pull the handle out. It looked pretty generic so I compared it to the one in the truck. The angle would work and it was noticeably shorter than the truck's stocker. I pulled the one out of the truck column and found that the pivot hole and the nubby end of the handle that moves the shift mechanism in the column were all the same dimensions from the pivot hole to the nubby so it should drop right in! Or so I thought.

I found that the Chevelle handle was thicker where it mounts in the shroud, where the roll pin goes through to hold it in place. No biggie, I can just grind off a bit to get it to fit as long as I keep the surfaces parallel to the original.

Holy crap-olly! What the hell kind of material is this handle made out of? It took me the better part of an hour to grind off the .090" of material required to make it fit. I was using my bench grinder with good wheels on it. I'd say I more polished the material off than ground it off. The resulting surfaces looked brightly polished when I was done, no harsh grinding marks were left.

Well, okay, cool, at least I can swap it in and see how it works. Hold on Tex! I also found that the pivot hole for the roll pin was one size too small and needed to be opened up. Well, I had just bought some cobalt drill bits so off to the drill press I go. Mind you, I'm only going from a 7/32" hole to a 15/64" hole. I drilled and drilled and used so much oil and wasted another 45 minutes and only got about half way through. The COBALT drill bit was suffering so I decided to take another direction. I got a small file and made some progress but still the roll pin wouldn't go in smoothly. After wasting yet another hour I got inspiration and pulled out my rotary tool bits and in there I found some diamond encrusted grinding bits. I picked the best one for shape and size and was able to FINALLY hog the hole out enough to allow the arm to easily pivot on the roll pin. Sheesh!

So, many hours later (over two days) I was able to lube the daylights out of it and install it. It fit great, works fine and I accomplished what I was after, a shorter handle that isn't so easy to bump. The shifting leverage is less so shifting takes a little bit more effort but not a big deal. But I started in with the thought I could just drop it in and go and I guess I was fooled by a few hundredths of metal! Still no idea what the heck this thing is made out of but we'd do well to wrap our war machines in this stuff to keep our soldiers safe!