Has anyone made an extra long stick for the gear shifter??

[Turbo Tim 1]

Yup that is the original boot, as far as I know all years of second gen trucks had that style. thanks for the compliment

 

[JPittinger]

Hey Tim- Sweet shifter. If you have a minute, could you describe what you had to do to the ends of the tubing? This would help me decide if I want to tear into this sort of project.
Thanks, JJ

 

[Turbo Tim 1]

I started with a piece of seamless stainless tubing and chucked it in the lathe and sanded it to a semi polished state.



On the knob end I welded a bolt into the tubing using 309 rod and then chamfered the welded area in the lathe



Then I bent it with an industrial tubing bender and kept mocking it up in place until I got it to where I thought I wanted it.



I found a couple of nuts that fit the shifter stub on the transmission and welded one of them to the end of the shift lever using 309 welding rod. I used the second nut as a lock nut putting it on the transmission stub first and then putting the lever in position and locking the first nut back to it.



After it was basically together and fit tested I took it all apart and took it to the basement and put it on the buffing wheel until she shined really good. You could use the stock knob but I decided to make my own just to make it a little more custom. The one I made is aluminum and is very very cold in the winter.



I started the whole project by bending up the stock lever a bit until I got it pretty comfortable and then used that as a pattern to some extent but that isn't really required.



The hardest part is really bending the tubing, even with a tubing bender the bigger tubing is no picnic. I think the 1 inch tubing I have will require some heat because I don't have access to an automated bender.

 

[HookMeUp]

Here's what I did.

Finally got my digital camera back from the shop and thought I would post what I did.

 

[MEby]

seems like you could take a stock stick and bend it like the ones in the photos. I'll have to put that on my "somewhere in the future" to do list.

 

[HookMeUp]

Mine is the stock shifter. Just took a propane torch to it.

 

[Turbo Tim 1]

I started by bending up my stock stick but then wanted to take it a step further and make it shiney

 

[MCummings]

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It's been done.





Merrick