detent/shifter lever swap addendum

[tee byrd]

Hey all,

I just finished swapping the detent and shift lever on my '62.
I followed the very nice work put together @
http://www.southsandia.com/website/shiftdetent.html
by Tom G. (aka ABQTBird)

I wanted (in case it is helpful to any of you), to add a few of my own notes to that whole procedure.

-First, there are 3 specialty/specific tools you cant go without on this job: Steering wheel puller, snap-ring pliers (with very small tips) and a punch tool kit. He mentions all of these in the article, but I want to add just a little more specificity.
*The article does mention that you will need 5/16"-24 bolts (most pullers you buy at the local auto store dont have that size/thread in the kit). My local small hardware shop has a great selection of specialty bolts and such, so I went over there and grabbed a pair of of bolts. I got 2" long ones, could have gotten 2 1/2" as well and that would have worked. The puller I have is very similar to the one pictured in that article, and it is the kind you want because most kits have a long/flat bar that would interfere with the wheel. I will also add that you want small dia 5/16" washers, anything bigger will interfere with the puller center screw drive. Anything smaller will slip into the slots.
*As mentioned above, you want pliers that have very, very small tips. I had to grind my smallest tips down to get them to work.
*I wish I could tell you what size punch is needed, but my set is worn down and the sizes arent legible anymore. I also used penetrant on that step, because the pin on my didnt wanna budge after quite a few vigorous whacks with a hammer/pin. As he says, it is "unsettling" and he's right. You gotta whack the pin quite hard (and many times). This is the point where you thank Ford for making all the other stuff affected by your whacking so sturdily.

-Second, you will likely want to remove (or unscrew/detach is a better term) the turn signal switch. That is not shown in the article and is quite necessary during reassembly because you need its wires to have slack as you move the lever out of P to clear it open enough to get the bolts back on.

-Third, he talks a bit about the retaining horseshoe nut and spring, he is very correct that this takes a lot of dexterity. I didnt realize until after I pulled mine of that the spring is conical. I therefore didnt take note of which direction was which. Upon re-installing it, it was clear to me that the wide end goes toward the dash and the skinny end faces you. Sits much better that way, regardless of whatever the factory intended.

-Fourth, a somewhat critical detail in the section just after the part about the black background piece. Where he says, "Finally, the detent is in sight". What you should know on this part, is that you have to manually tug the entire assembly off the column at this point. It is quite snug on the shaft and did not want to budge. I inadvertently snapped a small piece off because I didnt know the whole thing had to just get yanked off (luckily the piece I snapped has no major function and is not visible once put back together). The best way I found to get this off is tapping the back of it with a thin blunt object of choice (I used a flat head with a rag on it so as not to scratch anything) and a hammer. That broke it lose.

-Fifth, the last step is the trickiest step. Getting those square bolt heads to simultaneously sit into the slots on the column and not lose them is very challenging. What worked best for me was threading the nuts on one turn. He said "a couple turns", I had to go to just one turn on mine, that was the only way to get enough angle on them to sit in there well. You have to push the assembly back toward the column and also push the heads (that are now facing the dash) away from the center of the column. If you were born with 3 hands, then you'll finally have a purpose for that 3rd hand ;>))
you are using the nuts as "handles" at this point to make the heads face away from center.

Final thoughts about the entire project.
-I am very happy that she doesnt wanna go flying out of PARK now. For that alone this job is worth doing.
-Do what I did, which is follow Tom's advice about doing the shifter and detent at the same time. You wont wanna do this job twice, so get both parts before you start yanking the wheel off.
-Starts easier of course because the NSS is much happier and P now really means P.
-I was also able to line up the indicator much more accurately so that when I select what I want, like N, the indicator actually sits at N. Very nice. There is some play on that, as far as you can go a little clockwise or counter clockwise on the reassemble process. They slotted the screw holes wide for just such a purpose.
-I will say that I was hoping that the R to L slop would have gone away entirely, but it did not. It is crisper, but not nearly to the degree I was hoping.
You can easily still bump your knee on the shifter while driving and send the tranny into a tailspin (especially if you are a taller guy like me).
Lastly, I want to yet again thank Tom G. for doing such a nice job. I would not have pulled this job off without his great article and great color pictures.

My post here is not in any way intended to give criticism to his article (quite the opposite). It is purely meant as an addendum to help supplement some info that I hope will be helpful for fellow birders who arent professional mechanics. I wish there were more step-by-step guides like what Tom put together, because much of the resto work on these old birds can be very tricky if you havent done them before.

Hope this helps someone out there and thanks again to Tom, as I said, I would never have gotten this done OMO w/o your article!

[Gagarin]

Thank you for the additional detail, I have this project on my list as I need to pull the wheel anyway so I might as well do this whilst the wheel is out for restoration. Best to have lessons learned before starting this project.

[FlyAngry]

Thanks for the additional info. It motivated me to get off my tail and get mine done. Glad I did, it's so much better. There's not much more to add but here's a few things I learned:

- In addition to slacking the wire to the horn, I had to slack the entire wiring bundle from under the dash to get the entire cluster off the steering column in the last step.

- When taking off the cover on top of the column to get to the shift indicator light, go at it from the front (closest to the dash) and simply pry upward.

- I forget which Thunderbird supplier I got my parts from, but they had it all as a kit. The kit included a replacement steering column upper bearing and it's rubber sleeve. I'm glad it did. The snap ring sits just above the sleeve, and the rubber got damaged as I worked the snap ring off. Also, it took a bit of persuasion and a bit of WD-40 to get the bearing off. Upon closer inspection, the bearing felt a bit rough so I went ahead and replaced it. At a minimum, I'd inspect the bearing and add grease as necessary.

Once I had all the parts and tools, the job took me about three hours as a complete novice.

Cheers

JP