4 speed column conversion

[beaterC10]

I have been looking without success to find a floor shift tilt column for my 83. I contacted the guy on ebay that sells rebuilt columns, he doesn't have one for an 83. The 84-87 column he just sold went for over $200.

I'm now looking for a way to convert my column shift tilt column into a floor shift column.

I found out the switch bowl is interchangeable for most of GM and some Jeep tilt columns from 77-92. Since that much interchanges and it is a GM part, seems like there is some chance for interchange in some of the rest of the parts.

I am making the assumption I can use the original truck steering shaft and tilt knuckle and replace the shifter related parts with the equivalent parts from a floor shift column.

The likely candidates look to be Jeep Wrangler and Firebirds. They seem to go cheap, are commonly floor shift, and look similar to a truck column. Has anyone tried this?

The other option is knock the shifter pin out, lop the shifter boss off, and bondo the resulting hole.

Any other ideas?