The Official John Lee Jr Thread

[Sharps40]

Shifter adapter prototyping time. So, picked up 3 feet of 5/8" round bar....will bend it up later for a shifter handle.....and try to taper it in the drill press for addition of a knob...but....

If you look at the photos of the shifter on the T5, the Chevy shifter is a 3/4" dia round bar....for shifters are half round and the handles bolt on. Most folks cut off the Chevy shifters and weld their custom shifter on. I don't wanna weld it...I might want to change shifters like GoodWife changes shoes....so...options.

I could cut off the excess chevy shifter, grind one side flat and drill it to accept any of the ford style shifter bars. I might still do that but for now, I want to try something perhaps a bit easier....a nice tapered round adapter that slides on and cross bolts to the T5 stub I'll be leaving behind after cutting off the excess.

So, 5/8" thin wall steel tube slips over the 5/8 rod I bought...so far so good, one end can be mounted with minimal work...but its thin wall. 3/4 inch steel gas/water pipe is a bit over 3/4" ID and as it turns out, perfect.

So...first, get the other end of the thin wall sized up so it'll accept the 3/4" diameter stub of the T5 chevy shifter. Grease, Smasher Wacker and a variety of sockets to slowly expand one end of the thinwall pipe....sorta tapered opening.



Lemmie tell ya, this ain't an easy job...but I got plenty of thin wall to practice with.

One end of the thin wall roughly tapered to accept the 3/4" shaft and the other end left alone to accept the 5/8" shaft...now I grease up the OD of the thin wall and drive it into the gaspipe and get after the inside with the sockets again to improve the shape of the thin wall and its taper.....the gas pipe acts as a hollow anvil.



I split the gas pipe a bit, shape on the installed thin wall sleeve, slit the pipe some more, shape the thin wall installed in the pipe and finally slit the gaspipe thru and drive the sleeve out, the gas pipe retains the taper. "I meant to do that." Lucky me.



The sleeve installed in the gas pipe....the shifter in the top of the sleeve...ready to cross drill and bolt. If it all fits the T5 shifter when rough assembled, I'll set up the lower half of the adapter for two cross bolts to attach to the shifter. From there I can bend and shape my shifter shaft, install the ball and if really industrious, get out my arc welder and some hangers and weld the adapter to the shifter shaft. (Or get my boy to Mig it for a couple Tacos from Tacos El Primo)