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T19 Shift Lever/Rail Woes


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Well my 3/8-16 to 3/8-24 studs finally arrived, and it looks like this is going to work out nicely. :nabble_smiley_good:

I did buy a box of 10 studs, so I might do my 1987 handle as well, although it hasn't been mangled like the one I'm working on.

Looks good! 👍

Definitely seems the KISS solution

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Yippee! But are you going to run the stud farther in, cut it off, or?

The picture was taken with the stud resting against the shift lever, but has not been threaded into the lever as I haven't drilled the lever out to size. Once I do, the only thing that will be visible is the small center section of the stud. The studs I ordered are less than an inch on the 3/8-16 side so I'm not having to cut too far down into the lever and also so I don't have to cut the studs down.

Sounds great, Shaun! :nabble_smiley_good:

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Thanks guys! Once the threads are cut, I'll soften down the edge near the splines so that it doesn't tear my fingers up.

Well this went alot easier and quicker than I expected, so here is the "finished" product. I still need to loctite the stud in, but test fit works perfect and it feels nice and solid.

Two things to note however.

  • The inside expands outward to match the outside profile. I noticed that after my tap was halfway into cutting, the tap went through easy for the remainder as if it was no longer cutting. I stuck a light in, and sure enough, it tapers outward not far from the splined section. Had I completely cut the splines off of the shaft, I likely would have very little threads. Luckily I have complete thread engagement on the studs I bought, so no issues on my end. Just something to note if anybody else attempts this with the newer shift lever.

  • The second issue is that the shift levers seem to be much closer than I remember seeing in photos. If I were to have the transfer case in say Neutral or 4L, the 1st to 2nd shift would hit the transfer case knob. I'll have to investigate this more once everything is in the truck, so it's not a huge concern at the moment. But I am going to dig through my photos and see if I can find manual/manual trucks with the same transfer case lever I have, because I might have figured out why there is a difference in the curves of the shift levers..... (I have since determined that is not the case)

    Screenshot_2024-01-23_201259.jpg.05e85956d49e330b07e56751cb28fac6.jpg

    Screenshot_2024-01-23_201404.jpg.e4bb7a153b3d4c9cf5d9dfc476cf44bd.jpg

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Well this went alot easier and quicker than I expected, so here is the "finished" product. I still need to loctite the stud in, but test fit works perfect and it feels nice and solid.

Two things to note however.

  • The inside expands outward to match the outside profile. I noticed that after my tap was halfway into cutting, the tap went through easy for the remainder as if it was no longer cutting. I stuck a light in, and sure enough, it tapers outward not far from the splined section. Had I completely cut the splines off of the shaft, I likely would have very little threads. Luckily I have complete thread engagement on the studs I bought, so no issues on my end. Just something to note if anybody else attempts this with the newer shift lever.

  • The second issue is that the shift levers seem to be much closer than I remember seeing in photos. If I were to have the transfer case in say Neutral or 4L, the 1st to 2nd shift would hit the transfer case knob. I'll have to investigate this more once everything is in the truck, so it's not a huge concern at the moment. But I am going to dig through my photos and see if I can find manual/manual trucks with the same transfer case lever I have, because I might have figured out why there is a difference in the curves of the shift levers..... (I have since determined that is not the case)

Glad it's worked out with the stud! :nabble_smiley_good:

Interesting about the bends.

There's always a good reason to change expensive tooling on a production line.

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Glad it's worked out with the stud! :nabble_smiley_good:

Interesting about the bends.

There's always a good reason to change expensive tooling on a production line.

Thanks!

I've already debunked the shift lever curve assumption as I have pictures of manual/manual trucks with the same bend shift levers I have, and I also realized my spare T19 that this shift lever I modified came from had the same style bend on the transfer case lever that came with it.

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Well this went alot easier and quicker than I expected, so here is the "finished" product. I still need to loctite the stud in, but test fit works perfect and it feels nice and solid.

Two things to note however.

  • The inside expands outward to match the outside profile. I noticed that after my tap was halfway into cutting, the tap went through easy for the remainder as if it was no longer cutting. I stuck a light in, and sure enough, it tapers outward not far from the splined section. Had I completely cut the splines off of the shaft, I likely would have very little threads. Luckily I have complete thread engagement on the studs I bought, so no issues on my end. Just something to note if anybody else attempts this with the newer shift lever.

  • The second issue is that the shift levers seem to be much closer than I remember seeing in photos. If I were to have the transfer case in say Neutral or 4L, the 1st to 2nd shift would hit the transfer case knob. I'll have to investigate this more once everything is in the truck, so it's not a huge concern at the moment. But I am going to dig through my photos and see if I can find manual/manual trucks with the same transfer case lever I have, because I might have figured out why there is a difference in the curves of the shift levers..... (I have since determined that is not the case)

Glad it worked. But given the taper might it be better to drill the shift lever and tap it to a larger size?

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Glad it worked. But given the taper might it be better to drill the shift lever and tap it to a larger size?

No, because then it would be hard to find a stud that would be the larger thread on one side, and 3/8-24 on the other. A thread reducer for shift knobs could work to fix that issue, but it wasn't really necessary.

Remember, I cut down the splined section due to how mangled it was. Had I not done that, there would have been over 2 inches worth of thread. The threads cut into the lever after I cut it down are still longer than my stud's threads so I have full thread engagement. No need for more threads unless I went to a longer stud which wasn't necessary for this application.

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Glad it worked. But given the taper might it be better to drill the shift lever and tap it to a larger size?

No, because then it would be hard to find a stud that would be the larger thread on one side, and 3/8-24 on the other. A thread reducer for shift knobs could work to fix that issue, but it wasn't really necessary.

Remember, I cut down the splined section due to how mangled it was. Had I not done that, there would have been over 2 inches worth of thread. The threads cut into the lever after I cut it down are still longer than my stud's threads so I have full thread engagement. No need for more threads unless I went to a longer stud which wasn't necessary for this application.

Makes sense. :nabble_smiley_good:

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