My A-833 OD transmission shift linkage for my D-150 truck is loose / worn is there a way to tighten it up or a linkage repair kit available?

bwhitejr

_________________
'72 Duster (Performance 360)
'83 Ramcharger (Performance 318)
'80 TrailDuster (360)
'80 D-150 Truck (See Below)
CompCams 252S, Holley 390cfm, Offy manifold
Ported, Polished and Gasket Matched
P4286813 Springs,0.040 Overbore,
0.090 Shaved Head

I believe hurst makes a kit for that. It has washers ans spacers to help eliminate the play.

Greg

_________________
http://www.youtube.com/hyperpack

Hello bwhitejr,

I have some suggestions. Mine derive from having recently bought 4 shifters and about 25 rods and accumulating various bushings, clips, etc. for an 833OD conversion I am doing. First, be sure it is your linkage...if the shifter is loose from the mount or if the mount is loose, your shifting will be loose.

If they are tight, then you have sevral options. I think the little wavy sr\pring steel washers that go under the pins and occupy the space between the pin and the shifter tab our transmission tab are as important as the bushings, particularly if you have a setup that has no bushings. Be sure someone didn't leave the washers out, or maybe put in a limp washer...if so, put in some good ones.

Next, as has been noted on this board, you are way ahead if you get a tranny with mount and linkage together. Because my luck seldom ran that way, I began the old trial and error til I got it righ way. That is how I got so many shifters and rods, but in the process evolved what may be some useful relationships.

If any shift rods have either end wallowed out (either with bushing or not) you really, in my opinion, should replace them. Since you have a working setup, you have the hard part made easy...just measure the lenth of the rod and replace. However, you may get a rod that is the reverse of what you need in the sense that one end will have a 3/8 inch part that goes in a tranny tab, the other may or may not be 3/8 but will likely need, with bushing, to be 1/2 inch to mate to your shifter. (I prefer Hurst Competition Plus shifters and it is useful to disassmble them and clean them too...pretty easy as long as you keep the internal shims organized so you can put them back in the way they came out.)

If all that will work with a rod is to enlarge the hole in your tranny tab, you are in for a surprise. The tab is hardened! I ruined a 1/2 inch drill bit before figuring this out. I didn't have a carbide bit to try it, but it may be that a carbide bit would would be hard enough to drill through the hardened plate. What I did was anneal the area around the tab hole with a torch, drilled it out to accomodate a hardened bushing and silver soldered the bushing in place. You use what's called a drill bushing with the I.D. to match the rod you are using.

I have played with these shifter systems enough to decide that for my part, I prefer the steel bushings over nylon, prefer bushings over no bushings, and don't believe a Mopar clip is better or worse than a simple ripple clip. Lube on these should be done with wheel bearing grease, too. If you are starting from no parts and only a tranny, the Chevy shifter mount is one that will put your shift handle the furtherest foward from your seat, the 80's Dodge truck will but it the furtherest back towards the seat. If you need to know, I can tell you rod lengths at neutral position for any of the 833OD tabs and a Hurst Comp Plus shifter.

Happy Gear slamming.
rock
'64d100

Hurst has a kit to replace the little plastic washer in the shifter itself (this takes care of a lot of slop. The wacky 'spring clip' that used to come OEM is still carried by GM (used on certain Pontiac and Chevy car shift linkages). I have used a set of spring steel washers and some hair pins as the OEM clip can get brittle and go 'bye' at a bad moment (driving in rush hour traffic on the highway stuck in 2nd is not good).

The linkage is simple to figure things out, the hardest part is getting the kit and tearing down your shifter, cleaning everything, re greasing it, and replacing the worn out old crappy parts. If you have to drill the rods, the $10-15 drill bits marked 'Cobalt' are your buddy.

-D.Idiot

Thanks for the replies.

Passon Performance makes a kit with the washers, clips and etc. for $39 USD. I was wondering would it fix my loose/floppy shfiter? You know. I only recently noticed it was floppy after I drove another vehicle while I was rebuilding the engine.

bwhitejr

_________________
'72 Duster (Performance 360)
'83 Ramcharger (Performance 318)
'80 TrailDuster (360)
'80 D-150 Truck (See Below)
CompCams 252S, Holley 390cfm, Offy manifold
Ported, Polished and Gasket Matched
P4286813 Springs,0.040 Overbore,
0.090 Shaved Head

Funny how that works sometimes, you do not realize how things are until you try something new.

Also Check brewers' - They along with passon Are probably the leading 4 speed people in the mopar world today.

They might have a better kit or price.

www.brewersperformance.com

Greg

_________________
http://www.youtube.com/hyperpack