[MM in NM]

Perhaps not quite a "Hot Rod" but I'm finally puting together my old 79 C20 after some work. I've always been bugged by the loose shifter so thought I would just snug it up. It appears a little more complicated than that. Anyone here know of a fix?

The lever itself appears to end at a sleeve. Bottom of the sleeve has a finger witch slides on the forks down below. Finger was pinned to the sleeve with a plain looking split pin that had a lot of slop to it. It appears shifter was also pinned to the sleeve but someone tried to weld the sleeve to the shifter arm. That tack weld is now broken and shifter to sleeve joint is also sloppy.

[M&M CUSTOM]

I'm doing the EXACT same thing to my SM-465, mine is also sloppy and I am going to document it in my Project Journal.

I wouldn't try to weld or even braze the insert into the sleeve, the metals are different, and the insert is hardened and will be the first to break after trying that.

I first noticed mine had around 3/16" play at the lower ball end, and after cleaning the sludgelike material out of the sleeve the insert had almost ¼" of play, this was allowed by the sleeve being much larger than the insert and the pin holding the insert into the sleeve not being of the proper size either, WOW the quality of these 15 year old plus parts that we came to expect and accept.

I decided against re-drilling the pin and using a larger diameter pin at this time, but I did decide on trying to fit a steel shim made of sheet metal between the insert and the sleeve to take up the extra room.

Where the sleeve is tack welded (not the best method either) to the shifter shaft, it is best to clean the area up good enough to weld the two parts together correctly, this is best done by completely welding up the entire space between the rocker ball, the shaft, and the sleeve Just make sure not to build up the weld area more then necessary on the main rocker ball.

Bill from Pirate 4X4 has a page on this but doesn't go into the insert fix at all.
465 sloppy shifter fix link from Pirate 4X4.

[MM in NM]

Well, after a lot of thinking and some talking to buddies I hope I fixed it. I've been told there originally was a nylon (or plastic) bushing on the lower part. I'm told it was to decrease interior noise. New shifters are avialable but they are one piece with no sleeve, bushing or finger. Cost is about $60 bucks but they are straight so would have to be bent.

Wrecking yard had a replacement for $50 but it also had cracked welds and no bushing.

I passed and decided to try and fix the one I had.

I rewelded the cracked welds on the top of the sleeve and ball. Then made some shims from a piece of cut tin can. The finger actually does give a little, I think like it was designed, but is much tighter. The good thing is that if breaks or gets sloppy again it's easy to take out and perhaps replace again.