Re: Henry's 55 Constellation

Posted by Ross On 2010/3/24 21:27:28

About that little die cast shift lever: it is a constant problem and I have personally never taken a tranny apart where it was not loose or damaged. I was taught in machine design class to never use a set screw to secure an oscillating load--which that is.

The best solution is to drill and tap the shaft and lever clean through to the other side and secure the whole shebang with a good bolt and lockwasher. The thread size is 5/16-24. For real belt and suspenders, you can even install a nut on the far side of the lever. To minimize slop where the link to the valve body attaches, use a similar approach and drill and tap through the lever and link for a 1/4-28 bolt instead of that split pin. Spin a full-thread bolt in til the head almost touches the link, spin a nut up near to touching on the other side, then jam another nut against that one. This makes a nice tight rotating joint kind of like the outer joints on your front suspension.

I do this on all the TUs with good success. It is especially helpful on the push button cars as slop in the linkage get the shifter "confused".