The other day while looking at shortshifters for my camaro i came across an idea. i had a stock shifter in my hand and was comparing it to a short shifter. it seems the only real difference for a short shifter and the stock other than some added bonuses, is the length of the stick on the other side of the pivot point. what most short shifters do is move the pivot point of the stick towards the roof of the car more and extend the lower portion of the stick, therefor shortening the throw of the stick. now bear with me here. heres my idea. what would happen if we cut the lower portion of the stick and welded in an inch, making the lower portion of the stick shorter. then fabricate a 1 inch thick plate out of aluminum with the same bolt pattern as the shifter mounting bracket. and install it in between the shifter and the tranny. i know what you are thinking right now, isnt the shifter accutally going to be longer, to the untrained eye yes. but if you look at it in terms of angles and such it is acctually shorter throw. you could also chop a bit off the top to make it the stock height or shorter if your would like.

i personally dont have the tools or equipment to do it, but it works out in my head and thought maybe someone on the boards here wouldnt mind trying it out for me.

feel free to correct me if im wrong, change the idea around, just dont flame me for trying to be creative. hell it might not even be worth it in the long run, but i cant see a little bit of welding and a chunk of aluminum being to expensive.

let me know what u think.

TiMMaH

Doesn't really adress how sloppy the stock POS is though. Try an aftermarket and you'll be surprised.

i know how sloppy it is, but 175 dollars is a bit steep for a shifter is you ask me.

i am currently trying to buy one

i was just throwing an idea i had out there for other people to comment on. and my shifter in my car ist really sloppy at all, just depends on how hard it was beaten.

making the short shifter as i stated above would probably only run you like 20 bucks for materials and it would probably just work fine.

The idea is good...like yourself, I've thought of doing the same thing, but just don't have the equipment needed to pull it off.

anyone else have any opinions?

E-bay, you might not find it right away, but with some persistence, you could come across one for way less than 175.

thats not what this post was about people, im not looking for information on buying a shifter. im comments on making a short shifter.

on my friends we just cut the stick 2 inches right below the threads
was gonna do it on mine but it didnt really make it a short shifter it did make the throws a lil shorter but not much. it was still a sloppy shifter

Absolutely this will work. I did it a couple months after getting my 88 K1500. Just cut the stick below the pivot, welded in a piece of socket that just happened to be the right size, 1 inch long, and made a spacer 1/2 inch thick out of aluminum plate to space up the shifter body. After a minor clearance problem with the welds (wouldn't go into 1st) it works GREAT. Shift throw is approx. HALF that of the stock shifter, and the decreased leverage acts to tighten the feel of the stick some. While you're at it, shortening the top end of the stick would have some, if little effect as well. Sure beats spending $200 for a new shifter, if youask me.

i demand pictures

Aw man, I was hoping you wouldn't ask that. Didn't have a digital cam when I did it (hell, I didn't have a camera!) And I haven't had it off since. Ummm... I have a spare shifter with my new trans in the garage, I'll try and snap a shot of it to illustrate what I did. Updates to come....

K, I snapped some pics of a stock shifter for ya, just to illustrate. Keep in mind, this is off a pickup, I don't remember offhand what a t5 shifter looks like, but they're all similar. This is it, with the boot removed.

http://www3.telus.net/jdrew1/Pictures/Shifter.jpg

Once again, dunno how yours comes apart, it might be the same, who knows? This is a NV3500 trans BTW. They went in 1/2 tons, some 3/4 tons, I think s-series, and a few dodges. That ring comes out by rotating it until the opening meets the pin, then sliding the pin out. And again on the other side. Then you get this:

http://www3.telus.net/jdrew1/Pictures/Apart.jpg

Follow the arrows when you put it back together. There's one on the body and one on the pivot.

http://www3.telus.net/jdrew1/Pictures/Modify.jpg

Check out my mad photoshop skills! Ahem, yeah. Good with metal, not mouse. Cut along the line somewhere, further towards the top (away from the ball) is preferable, but make sure you have room to weld. Find a piece of something steel ( I used an old socket) Cut it about an inch long, and weld the bugger in place. Again, talking from experience, a big convex weld bead is not desirable, as it interferes with the travel of the shifter. Mine wouldn't go into 1st when I built it. Finally figured it out, ground the welds flat, and that was that. Now all you have to do is fab up a spacer. I used 1/2 inch aluminum plate, you wouldn't think it was thick enough, but it doesn't rub or bind anywhere. Make sure of that. 1 inch would be preferable just to be sure. Just cut it to the same outline of your gasket, or the bottom of the shifter housing. seal it up, bolt it on, and that's that. (with longer bolts of course) On a side note, the NV3500 has 4 M6x1 bolts that hold it down. That's puny. Especially when you raise the tower an inch, creating more leverage against the already pathetic little bolts. I managed to rip 3 out of the case about 6 months after doing this, and had to drive home in 3rd gear. Ever smelled a clutch burning?
Got a helicoil kit and did all of them. It's still holding. The stainless helicoils are just a little stronger than a cast aluminum tranny case, methinks. So when I built my new trans I helicoiled them all to 1/4-28 fine thread. Those should never pull out. I hope this shows you the light, and noone here ever has to buy a Hurst shifter. All this cost me was a couple hours, the rest I had lying around my toolbox at work. (I'm a journeyman mechanic) Good luck to you, and post some good pics when yer done!

Drew

that is exactly what i was talking about in my first post. it makes alot of sense and should work just fine. yes the shifts my not be as smooth, but im sure that if you put new bushing in the shifter and etc it should be just fine. i wouldnnt mind seeing the finished pictures as well. but what u have done is exactly what i was saying. good work.

Thanks, timmah. BTW, there is no roughness in the shift at all, it is just like stock only 1/2 the distance and 2x tighter. I'll get pics when I have the trans out for replacing, but that might be awhile. Been making niose for 3 years already, seems to last pretty good. (NO relation to the shifter BTW, when I bought the truck it had 1/2L of oil in the trans. DOH!)

Later

can you fab up shift stops

If you want to make your own I would make it just like an aftermarket unit. The stock shifters for f-body T5's are garbage. Just look at the differnce between the stock one and the Pro5.0 I replcaced it with. The differnce is night and day and the throws are incredibly short. The mechanism inside decreases the throws not just the length of the shaft. There is a reason why it is built so sturdy. It has zero flex and will not fatiuqe at all like a modified stock unit. When I pulled the stock shifter out it was falling apart. Mind you the car only had 33,000 miles at the time. I could not even fathum about modifying it. $175 doesn't seem so bad now does it. But if you have access to large blocks of billet laying around and you have time to some some serious geometry than go for it.

so the 5.0 has everything the hurst a ripper has

$175 for a shifter.... I paid $301 for mine. But thats cdn to you people... seems about $230 US. I even got a bit of a deal on it... good stuff is expensive IMO

Thx for the pic shifty... guess I can see why t5 shifters are sloppy, it looks like all sheetmetal. Great design. Well, my previous statement about throw distance still holds, but at least the NV3500 has a cast aluminum body, and the pivots and yoke are pretty skookum already. Sorry to hear you guys got crappy shifters....

i just drove the camaro 1st since june and the shifter is still tight

so have you built it yet