55.2-59 1955 cameo 3 speed column shift

[CSHADES]

I have a 55 cameo truck that I am fighting with the shifter. the shifter box has been off a couple of times including sending it to jim carters for rebuilding. The shifter gets stuck and you have to go under the hood and lift up on the shift arms to get back to neutral. everything on it looks perfect as afr as the shifter goes. I have replaced the bushings, adjusted the shift rods and clearanced the left exhaust manifold to make sure the linkage doesn't rub on it. any ideas on what I am missing or what I should do to solve it?

[mr48chev]

You have already done everything I could suggest. A worn out column shift shift box is pretty well standard for any of the AD and TF trucks that have a lot of miles on them.
75/80 K was high mileage for any 40's, or 50's vehicle With most people trading them off around 50 K in those days if they kept them for three years or more.

[dsraven]

take it off, dissassemble and clean everything, then check the parts for wear. go from there.
take pics
post pics
maybe we can help
how is the top end of the column shift for wear, at the lever end?

[mr48chev]

It's been 35 and maybe more since I last worked on one of those.
Past experience says that they don't like being speed shifted worth a hoot. My 57 Panel with the extremely stout 327 had that unit in it and I got it hung up on a speed shift once or twice. Had to do exactly as you have been doing, stop and work the levers back to neutral and go again.

What I am wondering is if there may be enough wear or slack that there is enough slack that the the pawl is missing the arm and getting stuck between arms.

If you were to take the lid off and check the clearance between one or the other shift arms and the case I wonder if you could put a shim washer the right thickness to take up some of the slack but still leave enough clearance to work smooth.

Then the next question is what grease do you have in it? I'm thinking the last one I did I filled with white lithium grease. The last one being the 53 that my students and I did for a friend of mine and that now belongs to one of the students that built it.

[dsraven]

I have shaved down the cover of the box before to get a better fit on the internals.
check this site out, it's prolly whats happening to yours.

https://vccachat.org/ubbthreads.php/...-1st-gear.html

[dsraven]

you could dig around through this thread to see a pic of how the neutralizer helps hold the gates in the correct spot and eliminate the stuck in gear issue. not sure if they are still available though.

https://talk.classicparts.com/thread...ear-box.20911/

[CSHADES]

thanks for the replies. The truck belongs to a friend/customer of mine so I am going to go get from him and look at it. I put a crate motor in the truck in the winter of 2018/19, along with new mounts and all the related/required parts. this problem started after he drove the truck about 500 miles, we were at the back to the 50s and the bushings at the column failed and the shifter jammed. I didn't know how this style shifter worked and I couldn't find any bushings at the show so he had it towed back home. I took the shifter apart when I got back, cleaned it and bought bushings from jim carter. he drove the truck a few times and it was sticking in gear and not shifting. I pulled the shift box off again and sent it to carters for a rebuild. when it came back I put it on and drove it, seemed good until I gave it back to him. I pulled the top off when I got it back from carters and I cant really see that they did anything to it besides different grease. I had white lithum in it when I sent it. it had some other grease in it when I got it back but they didn't even clean all of the white grease out of it. I read through the links you guys posted and I think I am going to try shims and look at the forks a bit more. I will post when I figure out more of what is going on.

[_Ogre]

a quick fix is to shift very angled I_I don't just pull thru the shift I\I
i had a 57 chevy moredoor with a worn out floor shift in it. careful shifts kept it going for another year

[dsraven]

some of the trouble I have seen is also related to the weight of the shift levers and linkages and also worn out detents in the trans allowing the trans levers to slop a bit and the linkage to sag some which takes the "gate" out of alignment inside the box. the box can't hold the weight of mud on linkages etc. sounds like that wouldn't be an issue here anyway.
the neutralizer sounds like a great idea and is shaped so once you select the next gear range, or lever in the box, the other lever inside the box is held against the neutralizer so it can't sag out of alignment and it will always be a lined up "gate". it probably wouldn't be that hard to make one if you know a machinist or have a mill

[CSHADES]

Originally Posted by _Ogre

a quick fix is to shift very angled I_I don't just pull thru the shift I\I
i had a 57 chevy moredoor with a worn out floor shift in it. careful shifts kept it going for another year

that would be fine if it were mine. the truck is very nice and the guy that drives it is not very mechanically inclined. he can not understand why the shifter doesn't work right any more and why I have not repaired it so it doesn't do this any more.

[CSHADES]

Originally Posted by dsraven

some of the trouble I have seen is also related to the weight of the shift levers and linkages and also worn out detents in the trans allowing the trans levers to slop a bit and the linkage to sag some which takes the "gate" out of alignment inside the box. the box can't hold the weight of mud on linkages etc. sounds like that wouldn't be an issue here anyway.
the neutralizer sounds like a great idea and is shaped so once you select the next gear range, or lever in the box, the other lever inside the box is held against the neutralizer so it can't sag out of alignment and it will always be a lined up "gate". it probably wouldn't be that hard to make one if you know a machinist or have a mill

the truck actually has a newer 3 speed Saginaw trans that is all syncroed it feels good when you shift and doesn't make any noise.

[CSHADES]

i wanted to update this and maybe help someone with the same problem down the road. I went and picked up the truck on the july 4th weekend. I found another shifter box from a local guy here that was putting an auto in his truck. I installed the replacement box and found that it was actually worse than the box I already had. So using the advise that I had received in the earlier posts here I figured I would try fixing the original box. I took it apart, filed the cover and rechecked the slop. it was still very sloppy so I proceeded to very carefully grind the cover and the lower housing with a 3 inch sanding wheel on my die grinder, I went slowly and stopped when the slop was gone from the shaft to box. the one end was actually to tight and wouldn't let the shaft/levers move freely. I used a brake cylinder hone on cover holes for the shafts. at this point the shaft and box had no side to side or up and down movement. I thought I had I handled, reinstalled the box and tried shifting. it was still horrible but different horrible than before. I decided to disassemble the shift lever and upper pivot point. the screw on pivot was very stiff to unscrew and when I finally got it apart I could see all of the body dust and other accumulated debris. I cleaned every thing, lubed and reinstalled. it worked great. I drove the truck back to the owners house which is about 30 miles away and tourist area that requires quite a bit of shifting. no problems. I talked the owner on the phone last week and he told me that he hasn't had any problems with it other than he thinks the shifter travels to far now which I informed him that it just shifts easier now. I think we are good now.