HH56 wrote:
The lever in the photo resembles the revised 55 lever as shown in the illustration accompanying the report of the rod issue in Service Counselor Vol 30 #1. The lever in the parts book plate 33 identifies the trans as a 56 and typical of 55. It shows a slight curve to the lever. Being there is a different part number for 56 Leeedy is correct -- there is a difference in levers and for that I apologize for not paying more attention to the differences and catching that.

The question would be did the entire column and linkage get transferred from a 56 parts car to make the conversion or was it pieced together. If you have a 56 column then everything might have been transferred intact except for the lever which might be sitting on on of the other transmissions if an extra came with the car. If parts are intermixed then I would agree with Leeedy that it can be a problem to adjust things. With the change in angle between the revised 55 and the 56 levers appearing to be fairly small there might be enough adjustment to firmly get in all gear positions. Does the lever move in equal steps with a distinct detent felt at each gear position N,H,D,L,R when going from neutral to reverse and back again?

Once you verify the trans is going into each selection completely you might be able to adjust the indicator to read properly by moving the clamp for the pointer which is under the rubber cover on the column. If you cannot get it to read properly then most likely an adjustment is at an extreme probably because of a mismatch in linkage.